The fact that he surely knew about this situation but still cashed in $4 mill worth of bonuses and THEN laid people off? Wow. Not only a low life, but apparently, perhaps, a criminal low life. Would love to see the PAC-12 lawyer up and force Scott to speak out of both sides of his face for weeks on end. It would be the very least they could do for him.
Jan 23, 2023·edited Jan 23, 2023Liked by John Canzano
Standard corporate hackery. The executives enrich themselves at the expense of the long-term outlook for the company they are managing. Unfortunately the traits that make one a sociopath also makes one great at working up the corporate ladder and fooling good people into hiring you. The best way I saw to prevent this was an old law in the UK setting a limit that the highest paid person could make no more than 40 times then the lowest paid person. The Tories threw out that law 20 years ago and they are just now starting to experience the corporate thievery rampant here in the US corporate world. The real cause is the global economy. In order to compete our companies need to continue to grow through mergers and the larger the company the easier for the sociopaths to take control.
Any legal wrangling that can occur to wrestle back those performance bonuses? If not, seems a stock and pillory punishment should be in order at the PAC 12 Championships -- both football and basketball for the same number of years Larry ruled as commissioner.
Clawback.........Common in business, gov't. Go after him. Also, all the school leaderships share in the blame of the Larry Scott fiasco. He reported to them and they did..............nothing. Wonderful follow up article John.
Clawbacks are standard practice when questionable practices are discovered. These are certainly in that category and for those of us that have been Pac12 (and Pac10 & Pac 8) supporters are owed the truth!.
The PAC 12 university presidents and chancellors should also have to answer for their lack of oversight. The PAC 12 is one of the least transparent worst governed multi billion dollar entities I’ve ever seen and it starts with the presidents and chancellors. As bad as Larry Scott was there is still no evidence that transparency or basic governance has improved.
The lack of transparency and woefully inadequate corporate governance still exists. Try to find basic things like public notices for board meetings, meeting agendas, ways for the public to listen to or watch the board meetings. None of these are available to the public which is shocking since 9 of the 10 remaining institutions are state run.
Many of the Presidents who hired Scott may be gone but the lack of transparency and inadequate governance remains. The PAC 10 would be far better off if the bylaws were amended to allow the presidents to nominate board designees. People who know how to run a board and business because it hasn’t and isn’t being done anywhere close to competently let alone well enough to compete with the SEC and Big 10.
The Big 10 is not adding them. #1 Ducks can't command $60 to $70M a year, so the whole conference takes a pay cut. Not gonna happen.
#2 BIg 10 schools have no appetite for further expansion, and that's clear
#4 Big 10 just lost their Conference President to the Chicago Bearsz and have no direction like this until a new leader is in place. A year, maybe?
#5 Path for Ducks to CFP is much easier in P12 rather than B10.
The Big 12 would certainly take Oregon, but the dollars are comparable. And the Big 12 is not comparable academically, politically, and culturally. Just isn't. We'd constantly have protests about a team from Texas, etc.
And there's the travel component. Oregon fans can easily get to any P12 city. They can't get easily to most B12 cities. No flights from Portland to Iowa or Oklahoma, West Virginia, etc
And there's 24 Pac 12 sports. Lots of non profit sports requiring travel
In short, right now, there's no where to go. In 5 years expect this to start all over again
All true...and why were these guys still around? Anyone remotely in Scott’s circle should have been cleaned out within 30 days of Kliavkoff being hired. House cleaning has long been needed and it isn’t clear that the new guy is up to it. When one takes over an org, and you look back on your first year or two, the thoughts are never “I fired ___too soon”; it’s always realizing that you should have fired them sooner. Kliavkoff has been a disappointment.
It seems that the folks in charge of the SEC member schools 'get it' and Greg Sankey 'gets it.'
The operating costs of the SEC Commissioner's office including Sankey's salary are peanuts compared to the Pac-12.
Too bad we Pac-12/10 fans aren't shareholders so we could bring suit and hold the 'board of directors' responsible. These folks seem incapable of making sound business decisions.
Yes because expanding at that time without a larger media deal would mean her school, along with ever other school in the Pac-12, would get less money. It made no financial sense as they couldn’t begin negotiating a new deal until 2024.
I disagree. The B12 'orphan' schools were desperate at that time. An unequal split of assets could have been negotiated among the new member schools and existing member schools
The network particularly in Texas would have picked enough subscribers to get it in the black and on DIRECTV. This would have allowed the investor schools to get an ROI on their network investment and made available more money for distribution.
USC could have rightfully received a bigger slice of the revenue, Revenue split on investment in the money-ball sports of CFB, CBB, and all in athletic budgets, eyeballs on the games, success on the field, and cost of living adjustments would have been some of the benchmarks used for distribution of revenue. In other words, capitalism and not socialism would, could, and should have determined the bottom line.
Does it make sense to you that in the B1G SC will be paid the same amount of revenue as Northwestern?
Oregon was the 12th most CFB viewed in the nation last season and obviously should get a revenue share greater than say Washington state.
I worked on many M+A deals in my career. Typically, a premium is paid for acquired entity stock. Operational cuts and the move into new markets pays off over time. In this case, the schools to be acquired were as noted above desperate and could not have commanded a premium. SC may not have gotten what it will in the B1G but perhaps gotten enough to remain as a Pac-20 member?
IMO, having schools being immediately accretive is voodoo math driven by the paying networks. After all both Rutgers and Nebraska joined the B1G for a lesser share of proceeds.
As the conference bell cow SC would have gotten the largest share of the proceeds. And adding KS, K ST, TX Tech, Baylor, TCU, IA ST, and Houston would have added schools competitive in CFB and especially in CBB. FWIW Kansas and Iowa St are AAU member schools and Houston is a tier 1 research university.
Picking up the Dallas and Houston markets would not have helped the Pac-12. Picking up a big number of CBB tourney money wouldn't have helped the Pac-12. And media-wise there would have been 4 Power conferences with 1, the ACC stymied by a long-term media deal. So, the SEC, B1G, and the Pac-20 would be negotiating new media deals. The B12 would have disappeared.
It was a short-sighted bad business decision not to expand. Was SC already talking to the B1G when the vote came down? If such was the case SC could be liable for damages incurred by the Pac-12.
Thank you for that last comment. One of the primary reasons I’m thrilled UCLA is leaving. The PAC 12 has become a second rate conference thanks to Scott. And I don’t see a big improvement with a “media mogul” type like Kliavkoff. The conference needs an “athletics” guy plain and simple. What’s Peter Uberoff doing these days?
I'm no legal expert by any means, but this sounds like something that could rise to the level of criminal actions. I'll bet this isn't the last we discover of ol' Lavish Larry's corrupt behavior.
Jan 23, 2023·edited Jan 23, 2023Liked by John Canzano
The conference absolutely needs to lawyer up to try and get back every penny it can from these clowns, but this whole thing sounds like fraud....knowingly inflating the value of your property (thanks to an overpayment you knew about) to your investors (the schools) while you make a bunch of money (in bonuses). Obviously it's on a much smaller scale, but is this really that much different than Enron or Theranos?
If the conference was a public company this 'accounting non-disclosure' would be a violation of the SEC (government not the SEC conference) reporting requirements.
Even with this being outside SEC jurisdiction, I would think there must be some legal means by which you cannot *knowingly* overcharge a client for the purpose of inflating the value of your product so you look good to your bosses and collect a bigger bonus. I know intent might be hard to prove in court, but the fact that an audit was performed and still no one did anything for years is pretty strong evidence. Publicly traded or not, fraud is fraud.
At the very least, if I'm Kliavkoff I'm telling the Pac-12's General Counsel to reach out to the US Attorney for NorCal (whose attention this may already have received) and brief them on everything they know so far and let them know the conference is prepared to fully cooperate if they decide to investigate.
Unfortunately there is no recourse. In the corporate world lawyers would bring forth and civil suit on behalf of the injured parties, the stockholders. In this case the injured parties are the company themselves and I am sure the contracts in place protected the executives in charge. Now if they committed financial fraud that is a criminal matter and should be prosecuted as such. The thing is that while they may end up in jail any resulting financial penalties are paid by the Pac-12. Those penalties would provide justification for a civil suit. As for the lost $$ already gone not much the Pac-12 can do about it.
Sadly this story gets repeated over and over. Self important, narcissistic, greedy CEO takes over company and bleeds it dry while living like a king on his salary plus bonuses and then exits with a huge buyout. From Enron to Disney just recently the story is always the same. The only difference being that occasionally someone goes to jail, but mostly the company pays a fine and the perpetrators of the fraud skate. The $700B TARP payout in 2008 comes to mind, as not one executive went to jail, but the companies gladly ponied up a few billion in fines as the government rewarded their behavior while we lost our homes.
There is no doubt in my mind that Larry Scott ruined the Pac-12, took lavish perks, and walked away with millions and will probably have another job shortly, or retire in splendor, while we all pay the price of his malfeasance.
Yes, call in Larry Scott for answers. That's absolutely what's needed. I'd add: investigate. Maybe claw back some of the money he was paid.
But the university presidents aren't going to do that. They breathe the same elitist air Scott does--so they let him continuing to squander millions for years while depriving fans access to the network even after you and Wilner began reporting his abysmal practices. If the college presidents were a corporate board, they would be discharged for malfeasance.
I mean...did you see the exchange of notes between the UCLA and UW presidents over UCLA's failure to disclose its plans to bolt to the Big 10? The UCLA president whines: I was in a bind, sorry. To which the UW president replies: yes, I understand. You've been such a great mentor.
These are the people who hold a Pac 12 commissioner accountable? If my best friend--much less a colleague--did to me what UCLA and USC presidents did to their counterparts, I'd call him on it. But to them, collegiality is more important than accountability. Kumbaya, wine spritzers anyone?
Big picture: the Pac 12 commissioner needs to report to people with business acumen and with spines. Emphasis on the spines.
At this point, I'm not sure how much it matters in reality. The $s are gone.
Much of the problem is really the management style Scott embodied that was put in place, and the lack of oversight. And even though the Presidents/Chancellors have largely turned over, the culture of lack of oversight and delivery of results persists in many quarters. Stakeholders have been complaining about stewardship and productivity at various levels for years, and frequently running into pushback in the form of campus administration not thinking investors and customers should have insight into operations, or have expectations of a return on their investments.
What happened is what this approach opens the door widely to.
That's why this should go to the courts. If they file a lawsuit and subpoena Larry, he has to talk. Of course if this ends up being a criminal matter, he can and likely would take the 5th....but he'll have much bigger issues than a civil suit if he's indicted.
Good job John. I can’t understand why the university presidents don’t have more power in this process? They need to be investigated also. The PAC 12 seems to have been run like a grade school T-Ball conference with a greedy management team at top. An attorney once told me ignorance of the law is not a defense. Keep up the pressure and investigative reporting.
John, I'm sorry, but I disagree with you that Larry Scott has some questions to answer. Your going after the wrong person. Larry asked for the best contract he could for himself just like you and I would do. The people you need to ask question to are those &$#%($%(&($ people that said "yes, it's ok" to all Larrys demands and did not keep him under control over all those years he was ripping off the Pac-12.
Is it true that when Scott was confronted with his numerous misdeeds, he said, "Let them eat cake"? You have opened a lot of eyes to this corruption, John, and thank you for your excellent coverage of the issue.
I did not see anyone else providing this take so I submit it here. Is it really a surprise that a bunch of university CEOs allowed another CEO to spend a ton of money? After all, these are the same people overseeing a university system whose rising costs for over 30 years has greatly surpassed inflation. All but two of the organizations were public institutions and like most government entities saw rising costs as a plus instead of a negative. There is no incentive to limit costs but instead the opposite. They are incentivized to spend all they get so they can ask for more. The two non-government entities had much larger budgets to begin with due to their sky high tuition based on their reputations.
The fact that he surely knew about this situation but still cashed in $4 mill worth of bonuses and THEN laid people off? Wow. Not only a low life, but apparently, perhaps, a criminal low life. Would love to see the PAC-12 lawyer up and force Scott to speak out of both sides of his face for weeks on end. It would be the very least they could do for him.
Standard corporate hackery. The executives enrich themselves at the expense of the long-term outlook for the company they are managing. Unfortunately the traits that make one a sociopath also makes one great at working up the corporate ladder and fooling good people into hiring you. The best way I saw to prevent this was an old law in the UK setting a limit that the highest paid person could make no more than 40 times then the lowest paid person. The Tories threw out that law 20 years ago and they are just now starting to experience the corporate thievery rampant here in the US corporate world. The real cause is the global economy. In order to compete our companies need to continue to grow through mergers and the larger the company the easier for the sociopaths to take control.
Any legal wrangling that can occur to wrestle back those performance bonuses? If not, seems a stock and pillory punishment should be in order at the PAC 12 Championships -- both football and basketball for the same number of years Larry ruled as commissioner.
I'm looking into it.
Clawback.........Common in business, gov't. Go after him. Also, all the school leaderships share in the blame of the Larry Scott fiasco. He reported to them and they did..............nothing. Wonderful follow up article John.
Clawbacks are standard practice when questionable practices are discovered. These are certainly in that category and for those of us that have been Pac12 (and Pac10 & Pac 8) supporters are owed the truth!.
Feels like racketeering to me.
The PAC 12 university presidents and chancellors should also have to answer for their lack of oversight. The PAC 12 is one of the least transparent worst governed multi billion dollar entities I’ve ever seen and it starts with the presidents and chancellors. As bad as Larry Scott was there is still no evidence that transparency or basic governance has improved.
Most are now gone
And Gene Block of UCLA is right in the thick of it. 1 of 2 guys remaining. A real first class a hole in how he handled it
The lack of transparency and woefully inadequate corporate governance still exists. Try to find basic things like public notices for board meetings, meeting agendas, ways for the public to listen to or watch the board meetings. None of these are available to the public which is shocking since 9 of the 10 remaining institutions are state run.
Many of the Presidents who hired Scott may be gone but the lack of transparency and inadequate governance remains. The PAC 10 would be far better off if the bylaws were amended to allow the presidents to nominate board designees. People who know how to run a board and business because it hasn’t and isn’t being done anywhere close to competently let alone well enough to compete with the SEC and Big 10.
I'm genuinely curious, how did he handle it?
What were the things he did?
He's 1 of 2 remaining Larry Scott era Presidents, and he's bolting now and screwing every one in the aftermath. He created Larry
Oh ok, I see. Why doesn't Oregon just join the Big Ten? That seems to be the best path for the Ducks.
The Big 10 is not adding them. #1 Ducks can't command $60 to $70M a year, so the whole conference takes a pay cut. Not gonna happen.
#2 BIg 10 schools have no appetite for further expansion, and that's clear
#4 Big 10 just lost their Conference President to the Chicago Bearsz and have no direction like this until a new leader is in place. A year, maybe?
#5 Path for Ducks to CFP is much easier in P12 rather than B10.
The Big 12 would certainly take Oregon, but the dollars are comparable. And the Big 12 is not comparable academically, politically, and culturally. Just isn't. We'd constantly have protests about a team from Texas, etc.
And there's the travel component. Oregon fans can easily get to any P12 city. They can't get easily to most B12 cities. No flights from Portland to Iowa or Oklahoma, West Virginia, etc
And there's 24 Pac 12 sports. Lots of non profit sports requiring travel
In short, right now, there's no where to go. In 5 years expect this to start all over again
Thanks for the break down, Chris.
That's a shame. I think the Big 10 is really missing out.
Let's hope the Pac 12 doesn't get a paltry media deal and open the door for any teams to defect to the Big 12.
All true...and why were these guys still around? Anyone remotely in Scott’s circle should have been cleaned out within 30 days of Kliavkoff being hired. House cleaning has long been needed and it isn’t clear that the new guy is up to it. When one takes over an org, and you look back on your first year or two, the thoughts are never “I fired ___too soon”; it’s always realizing that you should have fired them sooner. Kliavkoff has been a disappointment.
I think the academics running the universities aren't generally tuned into such things.
It seems that the folks in charge of the SEC member schools 'get it' and Greg Sankey 'gets it.'
The operating costs of the SEC Commissioner's office including Sankey's salary are peanuts compared to the Pac-12.
Too bad we Pac-12/10 fans aren't shareholders so we could bring suit and hold the 'board of directors' responsible. These folks seem incapable of making sound business decisions.
And is GK the right guy to try and fix this mess?
Good question about George’s abilities to right the many wrongs.
Overpayment _from_ a distributor, not to a distributor
Correct. Thank you.
SMH. Larry Scott is the 'gift' that keeps on giving.
Crow? How does this man keep his gig at ASU? One of Larry's biggest enablers.
Reading this terrific take makes it harder, at least for me, to be ticked off at SC/UCLA for jumping ship.
Hadn't thought about that and the LA schools jumping ship, but you're right. Perhaps a bit more understanding on why they felt they had to bail..
I'd sure like to know if USC and UCLA voted against Pac-12 conference expansion while playing footsie with the B1G, FOX, and Kevin Warren?
From what I've read, USC president Carol Folt did vote against expansion.
She definitely voted against expansion; she is credited with leading the effort not to expand.
Yes because expanding at that time without a larger media deal would mean her school, along with ever other school in the Pac-12, would get less money. It made no financial sense as they couldn’t begin negotiating a new deal until 2024.
I disagree. The B12 'orphan' schools were desperate at that time. An unequal split of assets could have been negotiated among the new member schools and existing member schools
The network particularly in Texas would have picked enough subscribers to get it in the black and on DIRECTV. This would have allowed the investor schools to get an ROI on their network investment and made available more money for distribution.
USC could have rightfully received a bigger slice of the revenue, Revenue split on investment in the money-ball sports of CFB, CBB, and all in athletic budgets, eyeballs on the games, success on the field, and cost of living adjustments would have been some of the benchmarks used for distribution of revenue. In other words, capitalism and not socialism would, could, and should have determined the bottom line.
Does it make sense to you that in the B1G SC will be paid the same amount of revenue as Northwestern?
Oregon was the 12th most CFB viewed in the nation last season and obviously should get a revenue share greater than say Washington state.
I worked on many M+A deals in my career. Typically, a premium is paid for acquired entity stock. Operational cuts and the move into new markets pays off over time. In this case, the schools to be acquired were as noted above desperate and could not have commanded a premium. SC may not have gotten what it will in the B1G but perhaps gotten enough to remain as a Pac-20 member?
IMO, having schools being immediately accretive is voodoo math driven by the paying networks. After all both Rutgers and Nebraska joined the B1G for a lesser share of proceeds.
As the conference bell cow SC would have gotten the largest share of the proceeds. And adding KS, K ST, TX Tech, Baylor, TCU, IA ST, and Houston would have added schools competitive in CFB and especially in CBB. FWIW Kansas and Iowa St are AAU member schools and Houston is a tier 1 research university.
Picking up the Dallas and Houston markets would not have helped the Pac-12. Picking up a big number of CBB tourney money wouldn't have helped the Pac-12. And media-wise there would have been 4 Power conferences with 1, the ACC stymied by a long-term media deal. So, the SEC, B1G, and the Pac-20 would be negotiating new media deals. The B12 would have disappeared.
It was a short-sighted bad business decision not to expand. Was SC already talking to the B1G when the vote came down? If such was the case SC could be liable for damages incurred by the Pac-12.
Thank you for that last comment. One of the primary reasons I’m thrilled UCLA is leaving. The PAC 12 has become a second rate conference thanks to Scott. And I don’t see a big improvement with a “media mogul” type like Kliavkoff. The conference needs an “athletics” guy plain and simple. What’s Peter Uberoff doing these days?
I'm no legal expert by any means, but this sounds like something that could rise to the level of criminal actions. I'll bet this isn't the last we discover of ol' Lavish Larry's corrupt behavior.
Or at the very least civil suits against the two fired employees and also against Scott who knew or should have known about this accounting 'error.'
I sure do not want to see Oregon paying back 'its share' of the overpayment without going after Scott and his friends.
The conference absolutely needs to lawyer up to try and get back every penny it can from these clowns, but this whole thing sounds like fraud....knowingly inflating the value of your property (thanks to an overpayment you knew about) to your investors (the schools) while you make a bunch of money (in bonuses). Obviously it's on a much smaller scale, but is this really that much different than Enron or Theranos?
If the conference was a public company this 'accounting non-disclosure' would be a violation of the SEC (government not the SEC conference) reporting requirements.
Even with this being outside SEC jurisdiction, I would think there must be some legal means by which you cannot *knowingly* overcharge a client for the purpose of inflating the value of your product so you look good to your bosses and collect a bigger bonus. I know intent might be hard to prove in court, but the fact that an audit was performed and still no one did anything for years is pretty strong evidence. Publicly traded or not, fraud is fraud.
At the very least, if I'm Kliavkoff I'm telling the Pac-12's General Counsel to reach out to the US Attorney for NorCal (whose attention this may already have received) and brief them on everything they know so far and let them know the conference is prepared to fully cooperate if they decide to investigate.
Unfortunately there is no recourse. In the corporate world lawyers would bring forth and civil suit on behalf of the injured parties, the stockholders. In this case the injured parties are the company themselves and I am sure the contracts in place protected the executives in charge. Now if they committed financial fraud that is a criminal matter and should be prosecuted as such. The thing is that while they may end up in jail any resulting financial penalties are paid by the Pac-12. Those penalties would provide justification for a civil suit. As for the lost $$ already gone not much the Pac-12 can do about it.
Love "Lavish Larry"....
Feel free to use it as much as you like. I waive all copyright.
I wonder what the statute of limitations is on these claims.
Sadly this story gets repeated over and over. Self important, narcissistic, greedy CEO takes over company and bleeds it dry while living like a king on his salary plus bonuses and then exits with a huge buyout. From Enron to Disney just recently the story is always the same. The only difference being that occasionally someone goes to jail, but mostly the company pays a fine and the perpetrators of the fraud skate. The $700B TARP payout in 2008 comes to mind, as not one executive went to jail, but the companies gladly ponied up a few billion in fines as the government rewarded their behavior while we lost our homes.
There is no doubt in my mind that Larry Scott ruined the Pac-12, took lavish perks, and walked away with millions and will probably have another job shortly, or retire in splendor, while we all pay the price of his malfeasance.
Unbelievable
yeah.
Yes, call in Larry Scott for answers. That's absolutely what's needed. I'd add: investigate. Maybe claw back some of the money he was paid.
But the university presidents aren't going to do that. They breathe the same elitist air Scott does--so they let him continuing to squander millions for years while depriving fans access to the network even after you and Wilner began reporting his abysmal practices. If the college presidents were a corporate board, they would be discharged for malfeasance.
I mean...did you see the exchange of notes between the UCLA and UW presidents over UCLA's failure to disclose its plans to bolt to the Big 10? The UCLA president whines: I was in a bind, sorry. To which the UW president replies: yes, I understand. You've been such a great mentor.
These are the people who hold a Pac 12 commissioner accountable? If my best friend--much less a colleague--did to me what UCLA and USC presidents did to their counterparts, I'd call him on it. But to them, collegiality is more important than accountability. Kumbaya, wine spritzers anyone?
Big picture: the Pac 12 commissioner needs to report to people with business acumen and with spines. Emphasis on the spines.
That will never happen. University presidents are always from academia and, rarely if ever, from business or industry. Good thought however.
A problem is no one will get answers from Scott.
At this point, I'm not sure how much it matters in reality. The $s are gone.
Much of the problem is really the management style Scott embodied that was put in place, and the lack of oversight. And even though the Presidents/Chancellors have largely turned over, the culture of lack of oversight and delivery of results persists in many quarters. Stakeholders have been complaining about stewardship and productivity at various levels for years, and frequently running into pushback in the form of campus administration not thinking investors and customers should have insight into operations, or have expectations of a return on their investments.
What happened is what this approach opens the door widely to.
That's why this should go to the courts. If they file a lawsuit and subpoena Larry, he has to talk. Of course if this ends up being a criminal matter, he can and likely would take the 5th....but he'll have much bigger issues than a civil suit if he's indicted.
Good job John. Keep digging.
I have my shovel out.
Might need a backhoe.
Oh no! I'm picturing Flounder in the Animal House stables.
JUST KIDDING! Bring all of this shady stuff into the daylight.
Good job John. I can’t understand why the university presidents don’t have more power in this process? They need to be investigated also. The PAC 12 seems to have been run like a grade school T-Ball conference with a greedy management team at top. An attorney once told me ignorance of the law is not a defense. Keep up the pressure and investigative reporting.
John, I'm sorry, but I disagree with you that Larry Scott has some questions to answer. Your going after the wrong person. Larry asked for the best contract he could for himself just like you and I would do. The people you need to ask question to are those &$#%($%(&($ people that said "yes, it's ok" to all Larrys demands and did not keep him under control over all those years he was ripping off the Pac-12.
Is it true that when Scott was confronted with his numerous misdeeds, he said, "Let them eat cake"? You have opened a lot of eyes to this corruption, John, and thank you for your excellent coverage of the issue.
I did not see anyone else providing this take so I submit it here. Is it really a surprise that a bunch of university CEOs allowed another CEO to spend a ton of money? After all, these are the same people overseeing a university system whose rising costs for over 30 years has greatly surpassed inflation. All but two of the organizations were public institutions and like most government entities saw rising costs as a plus instead of a negative. There is no incentive to limit costs but instead the opposite. They are incentivized to spend all they get so they can ask for more. The two non-government entities had much larger budgets to begin with due to their sky high tuition based on their reputations.