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UW Football is Losing Money
There is a new report that says the University of Wisconsin’s poor performance on the football field is now costing taxpayers.
The UW’s Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy (CROWE) released its report NIL and Badger Football’s Decline last week.
"Beginning in 2021, Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) payments and free transfer eligibility opened college football to competitive labor markets. Programs that adapted quickest gained an early edge; Wisconsin did not," the report stated.
The report details how Wisconsin went from being competitive in football, and "outperformed its spending level between 2017 and 2019. But beginning in 2021, the report notes that Wisconsin began losing games, and losing money.
"Attendance fell from 66,530 fans per game (2006–2019 average) to 56,343 (2021–2025), implying annual game-day losses of about $10 million—or roughly $50 million over five post-NIL seasons," the report added.
The CROWE report then expounded on how the Badgers' fall from winning is having real, statewide ramifications.
"The economic cost of Badger football’s decline has already begun to materialize in visitor-dependent sectors of the [Madison] economy," the report noted.
Gov. Evers this month signed a new law that will send $15 million a-year to the UW to cover the cost of NIL payments to football players and other athletes. But the CROWE report said that may not help.
"Important questions remain about [the new law]," the report explained. "These include whether it is appropriate to use taxpayer dollars to support athletics programs, whether the subsidy might crowd out private NIL donations, whether the additional resources will successfully restore the Badgers’ competitiveness on the field, and what other state priorities these funds could have addressed instead."
The report came just days before the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report that Badger football ticket sales have dropped nearly 12%, and cost the state and/or university at least $5 million in projected revenue.
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