The Pac-12 is facing a potential revenue hit of $15.5 million as a result of canceled postseason basketball tournaments.
It could make that loss disappear instantly. All the schools need to do, is say the word.
The conference is sitting on a stash of cash _ emergency cash, to be precise.
More than $20 million of it.
"Fortunately," commissioner Larry Scott told the Hotline earlier this week, "our members had the foresight to create a reserve fund."
That fund was designed for precisely the scenario that unfolded in March, when coronavirus forced the cancellation of the Pac-12 and NCAA tournaments _ a double whammy likely to result in a loss of approximately three% of annual revenue.
The conference has approximately $22.5 million sitting in a strategic reserve fund designed to offset what an internal Pac-12 memo describes as "Unusual and Extraordinary Events," which includes "natural disasters."
A global pandemic that caused a suspension of college sports, forced Pac-12 campuses to empty and brought the economy to a halt would seem to qualify.
The fund was created before Scott took over in the summer of 2009 and held about $2.5 million at the time.
A few years later _ after the signing of the $3 billion contract with Fox and ESPN and the launch of the Pac-12 Networks _ the presidents and chancellors approved an annual commitment of $5 million.
The conference stopped the reserve funding after four years, resulting in the current amount of $22.5 million.
The following memo, written by Pac-12 chief financial officer Brent Willman and obtained by the Hotline, outlines the strategy:
