Steve Berkowitz

USA TODAY Sports

The college athletics conference financial pecking order has received a jolt – the Pacific-12 Conference new federal tax return shows it had more revenue during the 2012-13 fiscal year than either the Big Ten or Southeastern Conference.

The Pac-12 reported $334 million in total revenue for a fiscal year ending June 30, 2013, the first that reflects the conference's 12-year, $3 billion TV rights deals with ESPN and Fox; the debut of the wholly conference-owned Pac-12 Networks; and operations of the conference's nascent marketing and media arm, Pac-12 Enterprises.

That total represents a $158.1 million increase in revenue over what the conference reported for the 2011-12 fiscal year and a more than tripling of the $111.8 million that the Pac-12 reported for 2010-11.

The Big Ten recently reported $318.4 million in total revenue for a fiscal year ending June 30, 2013. The SEC reported $314.5 million reported for a fiscal year that ended Aug. 31, 2013.

Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott, the nation's top-paid conference CEO, saw his pay increase to just over $3.3 million for the 2012 calendar year, the new return shows. He was reported with $3.1 million in 2011. (IRS rules require an individual's compensation to be reported based on a calendar year; an organization's revenue and expense data are reported based on a fiscal year.)

In addition, with the start-up of the network and other businesses, the Pac-12 reported three other executives with total compensation, including bonuses, of at least $790,000 -- former Pac-12 Networks president Gary Stevenson (more than $1.3 million, including $320,000 in severance pay), current Pac-12 Networks president Lydia Murphy-Stephans ($793,000) and chief revenue officer William Cella ($790,000). Conference deputy commissioner Kevin Weiberg was reported with more than $570,000.

Scott's base compensation was reported at just over $2.2 million on the new return, which also showed him with $900,000 in bonus compensation. Tax records from other conferences covering calendar 2012 compensation showed Big Ten commissoner Jim Delany with $1.255 million in base pay and the SEC's Mike Slive with $1.173 million. Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby's base pay for his first 6½ months on the job was reported at $970,000 — an amount that, based on his monthly pay, projects to an annual amount of about $1.8 million.

Last year's Pac-12 return placed Scott's base pay for 2011 at $1.575 million and showed him with nearly $1.4 million in bonuses.

Pac-12 spokesman Erik Hardenbergh said Scott's pay is determined by the Pac-12 schools' CEO's, and that his bonuses are "performance-based and at the discretion of the the executive committee" of the CEO group -- a three-member panel that changes annually.

The new return shows that Scott continues to have the benefit of a nearly $1.9 million loan from the conference. The balance reported due on the loan -- $1,861,842 – is the same as the original principal amount, the return says. The loan was first reported on the tax records the conference filed in May 2011, which covered a fiscal year ending June 30, 2010.

The Pac-12's explosive revenue jump is due almost entirely to its increase in television revenue. The conference reported $252.7 million in television revenue during fiscal 2012-13. It reported $81.9 million as coming from the Pac-12 Networks.

For 2011-12, the conference reported total TV revenue of $85.6 million -- and that represented a significant increase from the $59.5 million in TV revenue it reported for 2010-11.

The start-up of the Pac-12 Networks also had a significant impact on the conference's expenses. It reported $332.6 million in expenses in fiscal 2012-13, which included more than doubling its spending on salaries to $29.4 million. Altogether, Hardenbergh said, the Pac-12 now has 186 employees. The conference reported paying $17.6 million to a general contractor and $13.7 million in what it described as "installation" costs.

Still, distributions to member schools grew substantially in what was the conference's first year of nearly equal revenue sharing. Each of the 11 schools other than Utah received about $19.8 million (Utah received $10.2 million, although fellow conference newcomer Colorado received a full share). For Arizona, Oregon State and Washington State, that meant a near-doubling of their money from the conference in one year. For Oregon and Stanford, it meant increases of more than $4 million.