Report: Bob Bowlsby paid $17.2 million by Big 12 in 2022
Being a college conference commissioner is fairly good work if one can land it, with high salaries and high-profile work. And it apparently even pays well in retirement.
Just ask former Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby.
According to recent tax filings from the Big 12 conference, Bowlsby made $17.2 million from the league in 2022, according to USA Today’s Steve Berkowitz. Bowlsby retired from serving as Big 12 commissioner in 2022.
All told, the pay breaks down into three main components: Base salary, vested income, and paying out some remainder of his contract.
Bowlsby’s 2022 base salary was $1.45 million, he earned another $3.337 million in vested income and got a final $12.26 million via a contractual payout upon retiring.
Bowlsby isn’t the only former conference commissioner getting paid
The Big Ten and the SEC are arms-racing to be the top conference in college athletics these days. Now, per the latest numbers today, you can score one in favor of the former over the latter.
Per a report by Daniel Libit at Sportico, the Big Ten generated $880 million in revenue in FY23. That’s according to tax returns that they obtained earlier today per request. With that, the league overtook the Southeastern Conference as the highest-earning collegiate conference.
“The Big Ten Conference took in $880 million in the fiscal year stretching from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023—the period that immediately preceded the league’s rich new television deal—according to tax returns obtained by Sportico,” Libit said. “Nevertheless, that haul earned the Big Ten the top spot in college conference revenue, usurping the $853 million the Big Ten’s fellow super league, the SEC, took in in FY23.”
This FY23 return takes into the account the final year of the league’s previous media rights deal. Since then, their new contract with FOX, CBS, and NBC, which is a seven-year agreement worth seven billion dollars, has begun with it starting on July 1st, 2023.
These earnings led to a distribution of $60 million apiece to their 14 members from last year. However, Maryland and Rutgers, who each joined back in 2014, received slightly less. This all comes before their four new teams in Oregon, UCLA, USC, and Washington arrive for the next seasons.
Kevin Warren, the previous commissioner of the Big Ten, received $3.7 million for his work. Jim Delany, the commissioner before Warren, was the conference’s highest-paid employee, though, with a payout of $5.8 million. He retired from the job in June of 2020. Meanwhile, Warren left a year ago to become the president of the Chicago Bears. Tony Pettiti has since been the league’s commissioner for the last year and is their seventh all-time.