John Malone’s Liberty Media — which owns audio entertainment giant SiriusXM, the Atlanta Braves baseball team and the Formula One racing circuit — disclosed that president and CEO Gregory Maffei’s 2020 compensation amounted to $47.1 million, up from $44 million in 2019 and $20.1 million in 2018.
He had made $19.8 million in 2017 and $16.9 million in 2016. The pay details were disclosed in a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Maffei’s salary last year was $871,880, against a salary of $1.16 million in 2019. In April 2020, the Liberty Media CEO received restricted stock units as part of a measure to waive and restructure his unpaid calendar year base salary due to “potential liquidity concerns” at the company amid the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
The bulk of his overall compensation last year continued to come from option awards, stock awards and a non-equity incentive plan.
Maffei’s 2019 compensation had jumped thanks to a new employment contract that boosted his option awards from $8.8 million to $27.8 million. His option awards dipped to $24.98 million in 2020.
Liberty Media in its regulatory filing also disclosed the annual pay for chairman Malone, which amounted to $1.09 million. He had made $1.4 million in 2019, $1.1 million in 2018, $797,082 in 2017 and $747,156 in 2016.
Liberty recently reported 2020 revenue of $9.4 billion, down from $10.3 billion, and a loss of $1.4 billion, compared with 2019 earnings of $106 million.
Maffei recently suggested that streaming giant Amazon would drive an accelerated push by Big Tech platforms for more sports rights worldwide. “I suspect they’re only going to get more serious over time and they won’t be the only ones,” he argued.
This story was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
