SEC revenue up more than $41M; Slive gets 25% boost in base pay

In its first fiscal year with Missouri and Texas A&M, the Southeastern Conference raised its total revenue by more than $41 million to $314.5 million, according to the conference's latest federal tax return.

The return, provided late Tuesday night in response to a request from USA TODAY Sports, also shows that commissioner Mike Slive's base compensation for the 2012 calendar year was increased by just over $230,000 to nearly $1.2 million. That 25% raise helped offset the absence of bonus compensation in 2012 for Slive, who received $550,000 in bonuses and incentives in 2011, when his total pay was nearly $1.6 million.

Even with the conference's overall revenue increase – which SEC spokesman Herb Vincent said via email was due to adjustments to TV agreements as a result of the addition of Missouri and Texas A&M – it reported losing money for the fiscal year that ended Aug. 31, 2013. Its return listed $317.9 million in total expenses, resulting in a nearly $3.4 million deficit for the year – an amount it covered from accumulated net assets that had totaled more than $46 million as of Aug. 31, 2012.

Vincent said via email: "We do not anticipate reporting a deficit in 2013-14."

As with any conference, nearly all of the SEC's expenses came in the form of distributions to the schools – and the distributions to Missouri and Texas A&M showed why they departed the Big 12 Conference.

Those two schools each received about $19.5 million in their first cuts of the SEC's primary pool of shared revenue, a dramatic increase in the amounts they received from their last full shares of the Big 12's primary revenue pool in 2010-11. The SEC's other 12 schools received around $21 million apiece from the main revenue pool in 2012-13, increases ranging from about $400,000 to $1 million per school from 2011-12. The SEC outlined its basic per-school revenue distribution for 2012-13 in a news release last May.

According to Big 12 tax records, Missouri got $12.5 million from the conference in 2010-11 and Texas A&M $12.2 million.

College athletics conferences are set up as non-profit organizations. Because of IRS rules about how non-profits must report compensation of their most highly paid employees, those pay figures must cover the most recently completed calendar year. Other expenses and revenues are reported based on the organization's fiscal year. In the SEC's case, its latest return it filed covers a tax year from Sept. 1, 2012 through Aug. 31, 2013, making 2012 the most recently completed calendar year and, thus, the one used for reporting compensation.

Slive's 2012 calendar-year total of $1,246,361 includes $1,173,333 in base compensation. Slive's base pay had been $940,000 in each of the previous three years. He had received bonuses in 2008 and 2011. His 2012 pay also includes $21,434 in other reportable compensation, $37,500 in retirement and other deferred compensation and $14,094 in nontaxable benefits. As in prior years, the return states that Slive and other conference executives used charter air travel "on an as needed basis" for travel to conference schools and for other conference business purposes, and that such travel was not treated as a form of taxable compensation.

His base pay for 2012 was less than that received in 2011 by Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner John Swofford (more than $1.6 million), the Pacific-12's Larry Scott ($1.575 million) and the Big Ten's Jim Delany (more than $1.3 million). Scott was credited with nearly $3.1 million in total pay and continued to have the benefit of a more than $1.8 million loan. Delany was credited with a total of more than $2.8 million.

The SEC's executive associate commissioners, Mark Womack and Greg Sankey, each had more than $375,000 in total compensation in 2012.

The 15% jump in total conference revenue still left it just shy of what the Big Ten reported as its total revenue for a tax year that ended June 30, 2012; the Big Ten reported $315.5 million in revenue for that period. However, the SEC's revenue surge continued to increase the financial pressure on the other conferences.

Among the major conferences, the ACC had the next-greatest revenue total during fiscal 2011-12: $223.3 milllion, and that was with a $56.6 million increase over its income for 2010-11. No other conference reached $180 million in 2011-12, although the Pac-12's 57.4% increase over 2010-11 put it at $175.9 million.

The SEC reported that its radio and TV rights revenue for 2012-13 was $204.2 million in 2012-13, up from $163.3 million the year before.