Steve Berkowitz

USA TODAY Sports

In 2014, his final full calendar year as the Southeastern Conference’s commissioner, Mike Slive had nearly $3.6 million base compensation, according to the conference’s new tax return.

Slive retired from the position in July 2015.

His base compensation for 2014 was more than 75% higher than it was in 2013 and is more than triple what it was in 2012.

Slive's base compensation is greater than the total pay the Pac-12 reported for commissioner Larry Scott for the 2013 calendar year. Scott has been the nation's most highly paid commissioner. Scott also had the benefit of a nearly $1.9 million loan from the conference,

Altogether, the SEC reported Slive with $3,655,576 in total compensation.

The return, which the conference provided Thursday in response to a request from USA TODAY Sports, also shows that SEC had $527.4 million in total revenue for a fiscal year that ended Aug. 31, 2015. That was the first fiscal year in which the conference began receiving money from the formation of the SEC Network and from the new College Football Playoff.

The total revenue figure is more than 60% greater than the SEC reported for a fiscal year ending Aug. 31, 2014.

The conference announced last spring that it would be distributing about $455.8 million to its 14 member schools — or about $31.2 million per school.

In its fiscal year ending Aug. 31, 2009, the SEC reported total revenue of just under $150 million.

As another comparison to the SEC’s new revenue total, it is more than half of the $906 million that the NCAA reported on its most recently available tax return — which covered a fiscal year ending Aug. 31, 2014.

Overall, the SEC ended its 2015 fiscal year with a $17.2 million annual revenue surplus. That is the conference's greatest surplus since its 2008 fiscal year, when it had a $7.6 million surplus, and likely is its greatest single-year surplus.

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.

On its new tax returns, the SEC reported $311.8 million in television and radio rights fees -- a nearly 50% increase over the $210.4 million it reported for its 2014 fiscal year.

The conference also had enormous growth in its revenue from postseason events, reporting $162.8 million in such revenue on its new return, compared to $98.6 million during its 2014 fiscal year. That's a 65% increase.

On the expense side, the conference reported having nearly tripled its spending on postseason events -- $27.5 million, according to the new return, compared to $9.3 million during its 2014 fiscal year. SEC spokesman Herb Vincent said this expense category primarily covers the conference's spending for the staging of its football championship game and its basketball tournaments, travel costs for the conference's participants in the NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments, and travel allowances for schools participating in bowl games.

Vincent said the increase in this spending that was shown on the new return was due to a variety of factors, including the re-classification of some of these expenses from another expense category; the SEC increasing its travel allowances for bowl teams; and the SEC having 12 teams in the bowl games that followed the 2014 season -- three in so-called New Year's Six games for which the SEC provides larger travel allowances than it does for other bowl games.

Executive associate commissioner Mark Womack had just under $430,000 in total compensation during the 2014 calendar year, according to the SEC new tax docunment. Greg Sankey, who succeeded Slive, had just under $410,000 in total pay in 2014.