The Pac-12 generated record revenue in the 2022-23 fiscal year, topping the $600 million mark for the first time, according to federal tax filings obtained by the Hotline.
The total revenue of $603.8 million, based primarily on media rights deals with ESPN and Fox, represents a 4 percent increase year-over-year.
“We are pleased to have generated record revenues for our members,” Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould said in a statement. “These revenues are used by our campus athletic departments to provide invaluable support to our over 7,000 student-athletes annually and to fulfill our mission to develop the next generation of leaders.”
Buried within the numbers are the seeds of collapse — numerous examples of the overspending and mismanagement that plagued the conference for years and contributed to its demise last summer.
Despite the year-over-year increase in revenue, distributions to the 12 campuses declined by $3.4 million per school, or 9.1 percent, from $37 million in the 2022 fiscal year to just $33.6 million in 2023.
While its peer conferences were increasing annual distributions, the Pac-12 went in reverse — and the revenue gap expanded as a result.
The Big Ten paid out an average of $60.5 million to its longstanding members last year, while the SEC spun off $51.3 million, according to USA Today. (The ACC and Big 12 also distributed more to their schools than the Pac-12.)
The conference attributed the decline in distributions to “lower revenue for Pac-12 Networks related to affiliate fees.”
The Pac-12 Networks reported $97.3 million in revenue, a year-over-year decline of $9.6 million. Split 12 ways, that works out to $800,000 per campus and does not account for the entirety of the year-over-year decrease in distributions.
However, the Pac-12 Networks numbers on the Schedule R portion of the tax filings are expected to be restated in a future tax filing to reflect lower revenue, according to the conference.
That lower total is the result of Comcast, a distribution partner, withholding payments to the networks in order to offset the amount it overpaid over the course of a decade.
The Pac-12 knew about the overpayments, which totaled about $72 million, but did not correct the matter until Comcast realized the mistake and contacted the Pac-12 in the fall of 2022.
(Two executives, CFO Brent Willman and Pac-12 Networks president Mark Shuken, were terminated for failing to properly report the overpayments. They have filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the conference.)
The tax filings include the following notation: “The conference anticipates filing an amended form 990 for fiscal year 2023 in the future related to a possible restatement.”
The filings also revealed, for the first time, the salary figure paid to former commissioner George Kliavkoff.
Kliavkoff’s disastrous tenure began in the summer of 2021, but because compensation is reported by calendar year, not fiscal year, his 12-month salary wasn’t reflected in the Pac-12’s tax filings released last spring.
According to the documents disclosed Thursday, Kliavkoff earned $4 million during his first full year on the job.
After overseeing the conference’s demise, Kliavkoff stepped down earlier this year and reached a settlement agreement with the two remaining schools, Washington State and Oregon State.
Kliavkoff received more in salary than his peers — SEC commissioner Greg Sankey earned $3.6 million, according to USA Today — but less than his predecessor, Larry Scott, who cleared the $4 million mark numerous times during his tenure atop the Pac-12.
Scott received $3 million in severance after parting ways in the summer of 2021, according to the conference. He also has an unpaid $1.8 million relocation loan due at the end of June.
All in all, Scott and Kliavkoff led the Pac-12 for 15 years, making one strategic mistake after another.
For their effort, they received approximately $57 million in total compensation, based on a Hotline examination of Pac-12 tax filings from 2013-23 and using USA Today reports for 2010-12.
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(The exact amount will depend on the severance package paid to Kliavkoff, which won’t become publicly available for at least a year.)
The tax filings also revealed that 13 current or former employees earned at least $400,000 in the 2022 calendar year, an increase from nine the prior year.
The list of well-compensated employees includes Scott; the two executives fired for the Comcast mess, Shuken and Willman; plus associate commissioners and executives in charge of sales, legal, strategy, content, communications, sponsorship and engineering and products.
In addition, the conference paid $4.2 million to Advanced Systems Group of Emeryville, California, for work described as “production facility buildout.”
The 42,000-square-foot facility in San Ramon, California, opened last summer and was intended to house the Pac-12 Networks after the lease expired on the conference’s office in San Francisco.
And it did — for one year: The networks are going dark next month.
However, the state-of-the-art studio will be used to produce Washington State and Oregon State’s home events, including football games, for media companies. At least for the next 12 months.
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