The Pac-12 has hardly been getting off Scott free.

Conference Commissioner Larry Scott earned $1.9 million in 2010, USA Today reported Wednesday, making him the highest-paid commish in the nation just months after he took the position. By comparison, Thomas Hansen, who headed the Pac-10 from 1983-2009, made less than $600,000 in his last full year on the job.

Though it’s no surprise that the Pac-12’s pockets have been getting progressively deeper in this era of big-money college sports, it’s exciting that the conference is doing so much better financially than its major counterparts. Its 12-year, $3 billion TV deal with Fox and ESPN shattered records and has begun to inspire other conferences’ similarly lucrative agreements, though none have yet eclipsed the Pac-12’s.

Having lived my entire life in the Bay Area, I’m no fan of the East Coast bias. But I’m a huge fan of blaming absolutely everything on the short-sightedness of our friends to the east, and when it comes to the conference pecking order, East Coast bias is clouding their understanding of something we are all very aware of: The Pac-12 is the most powerful league in college sports.

First of all, we have a practical monopoly over the world’s biggest hotbed of sporting growth: California. In college, California has produced indisputably the three most successful programs in NCAA history. UCLA’s 108 NCAA team championships, Stanford’s 103 and USC’s 94 are miles ahead of the take of the next-best Division I program, Oklahoma State (50).

But the Pac-12 is no stranger to uncharted territory. We started the whole conference realignment shindig that is still rocking the NCAA two years later. Big Ten fans will point out that their conference started the realignment rumors in early 2010, but while they were busy doing all the talking the Pac-10 ignited the powder keg by adding Colorado on June 10, one day before Nebraska announced its move to the Big Ten.

And what’s more, the Sports Business Journal nominated both Scott and the Pac-12 for its executive and league of the year, respectively, making them the only college-level nominees in each category.

Nobody cares about the big picture, you might quip. It’s all about the biggest teams in the biggest sports around: football and men’s basketball.

I can’t detract from the SEC’s six straight football titles. But on the other hand, the Pac-12 gets to send a team to the Rose Bowl—the biggest event in college athletics—on a nearly annual basis. We haven’t done that seven times, or even 70; no fewer than 92 Pac-12 schools have been in Pasadena for New Year’s.

The ACC may seem to have a claim to men’s basketball, with perennial powerhouses Duke and North Carolina. But the Pac-12 has actually won more national titles (15) in the sport than any other conference, even the ACC (12). And even though the conference has hit a rough patch on the hardwood over the last couple of years, given the storied history of programs like UCLA, you can’t expect those difficulties to stick around for long.

When it comes to the so-called “Olympic sports,” the Pac-12 is dominant. League members have already won eight national titles this year, and the conference has several major contenders in baseball and softball (though neither is actually played at the Olympics anymore).

So is the Pac-12 paying Larry Scott ridiculous amounts of money? Without question. But it has been getting quite a lot of bang for its buck, and before long even those from the East Coast will have a hard time denying its superiority.

Joseph Beyda is bracing himself for an earful from sports fans in the Southeast and East Coast. Give him moral support at jbeyda”at”stanford.edu.