Steve Berkowitz

USA TODAY Sports

College sports’ first $3 million commissioner is now college sports’ first $4 million commissioner.

Pac-12 Conference commissioner Larry Scott was credited with more than $4.05 million in total compensation during the 2014 calendar year, according to the conference’s new federal tax return.

Scott — who also continued to have the benefit of a nearly $1.9 million loan from the conference — has presided over a television and marketing strategy that continues to produce fast-increasing revenue for the conference and its member schools.

The conference had just more than $439 million in total revenue during a fiscal year ending June 30, 2015, according to the new return, which was provided by the conference on Wednesday in response to a request from USA TODAY Sports. That figure represents a more than 17% increase over the $374 million in revenue that the conference reported for its 2014 fiscal year.

Departing USC AD Pat Haden made $2.9 million in 2014

As a result, even with Utah getting a full share of conference revenue for the first time, per school payouts rose to roughly $25.1 million in fiscal 2015 from about $21.3 in fiscal 2014. (Under IRS rules, a non-profit organization must report its revenue and expense data based on its fiscal year; but it must report compensation data based on the calendar year completed during its fiscal year).

Still, the Pac-12’s revenue substantially trails that of the 14-school Southeastern Conference, which reported $527.4 million for a fiscal year ending Aug. 31, 2015. Both conferences benefited from the inaugural College Football Playoff (Pac-12 bowl revenue doubled to $80.1 million), but the SEC’s overall total also was enhanced by money from the introduction of the SEC Network.

The SEC reported per-school distributions ranging from $31.2 million to $33.9 million in fiscal 2015.

Scott’s total compensation for 2014 rose from slightly more than $3.5 million in 2013. The 2014 total includes $2.55 million in base salary and $1.25 million in bonus pay. He serves as both Pac-12 commissioner and executive chairman of Pac-12 Enterprises, which includes the wholly conference-owned Pac-12 Networks and other business ventures, Conference spokesman Erik Hardenbergh said Scott’s compensation — set by the Pac-12 schools’ CEO’s — “reflects the dual role he has.”

In 2014, then-SEC commissioner Mike Slive was reported as having just under $3.7 million in total compensation, nearly all of which was in the form of base pay.

In addition to Scott, the Pac-12's new return shows six other conference-office executives with more than $500,000 in total compensation during the 2014 calendar year, plus two others at more than $450,000. Among them is Pac-12 Networks president Lydia Murphy-Stephans, whose total was reported as nearly $1.25 million, including $405,000 in bonus pay.

Scott began working for the Pac-12 in 2009, and since then, the conference’s revenues have made a dramatic upturn, including the signing of a 12-year, $3 billion TV deal with ESPN in 2011. Scott also has overseen the start-up of the Pac-12 Networks and a centralizing of many conference digital rights and marketing efforts. In fiscal 2011, the Pac-12 reported $111.8 million in total revenue — lowest for that year among the then-Big Six conferences.

In fiscal 2015, the Pac-12 Networks generated close to $116.6 million in income for the conference, up from $106.8 million in fiscal 2014.

There has been unhappiness among some Pac-12 fans and constituents about difficulties in the distribution and tiering of the Pac-12 Networks, including the lack of a deal with DirecTV. There also have been complaints about the Pac-12 TV deals' impact on the number of late start times for football games.

But some of those issues have been a function of trade-off made for increased revenue.

"We're comfortable with where we are from a revenue-distribution standpoint and we feel very good about what we're doing on the field," said Hardenbergh, noting that the conference sent a conference-record 10 teams to bowl games this past football season, then had a conference-record seven teams in the NCAA men's basketball tournament and two teams in the women's basketball tournament Final Four.

The conference's approach to TV, digital distribution and marketing has resulted in significant expansion of the conference's expenses not related to school payouts — primarily in the form of network production and payroll costs. The conference has gone from 56 employees during the 2011 calendar year to 260 during the 2014 calendar year, its tax records show.

The conference reported $95.3 million in other expenses in fiscal 2015, up from $88.7 million in 2014. Those expenses were $37.2 million in fiscal 2012.

The other expenses in fiscal 2015 included nearly $3.6 million in outside legal expenses — $2.5 million to Proskauer Rose LLP, the firm that has been defending the conference in various antitrust cases related to the NCAA's limits on athlete compensation. The Pac-12's total outside legal tab in fiscal 2014 was $2.5 million.