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The Pac-12 made just over $374 million during the 2013-14 fiscal year, putting the conference ahead of the SEC, the Big Ten and the Big 12 (the ACC's federal tax return was not yet available). USA Today sportswriter Steve Berkowitz wrote that "The new revenue disclosure mean that the Pac-12, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC combined to have nearly $1.27 billion in total revenue in fiscal 2013-14 -- a nearly 60% increase over their combined $798 million in 2010-11." The payouts to Pac-12 schools during this time was, on average, $21.2 million. UCLA and USC both received about $21.3 million, according to reports from the LA Times. And according to that same report the only school that received less than $21 million was Utah ($16.1 million). That payout has increased over the past few years: 2011-12: payouts were between $10 million to $15.6 million 2012-13: average payout was $19.8 million (not including Utah, which received $10.1 million)
While those numbers do jump quite a bit, they don't jump quite as much as some of the Pac-12 expenses. From the 2011-12 fiscal years to the 2013-14 fiscal year, the Pac-12 drastically increased its spending. Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott was the highest paid commissioner of the tax returns obtained by USA Today Sports. He made about $3.5 million for his work during the 2013 calendar year, while Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany made $3.4 million ("but more than $830,000 of that amount had been reported on prior years' returns," Berkowitz notes) and SEC commissioner Mike Slive made $2.1 million. Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby brought in about $2.5 million, according to CBSSports.com. As CBSSports.com's Jon Solomon points out, even despite those staggering numbers with payroll and other expenses, 67 percent of the conference's total revenue went to member schools (68 percent went to schools in 2012-13). Solomon pointed out that the Big Ten (94 percent), the SEC (90 percent) and the Big 12 (87 percent) all paid out more to their member schools than the Pac-12. (Again, ACC tax returns haven't been made available yet.) But Scott had a response for the difference in those numbers when looked at across Power Five conferences. "It's a bit of apples and oranges," Scott told Solomon in a March interview. "Because we own the network ourselves, we have to report all of the operations on the network. The Big Ten doesn't report the revenues and expenses of the Big Ten Network because they're a minority owner. The SEC Network, likewise. If you compare just our conference operations, it's very comparable numbers." But after looking at these numbers, the Pac-12 can buy a whole lot of apples and oranges for everyone with that money.
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