So is your trip out west personal business, the both?
I was meeting with alums and friends of the university from Monday to Thursday and I could
have flown back Friday morning, but I thought maybe I'll fly back someday.
It was good.
You looked at the forecast.
Exactly.
I was like, huh.
The alumni groups are, are hope they're wonderful.
Yes.
We had a lot of really great, I mean we weren't doing any large scale alumni events.
This was more, I didn't really think of those badger parents and saw some of our devoted
friends.
So you go along the group a couple of times.
I was part of the crew classic.
I was an marching band and they flew out a few members to play.
Oh that's great.
I was also in Argentina over winter break and I was out to dinner and there was, turned
out to be a badger freshman and her parents at the same restaurant.
Oh yes.
So the, the daughter was a little nervous about coming over so the dad did.
And then we all take a picture.
Oh shit.
So.
Where you go, right?
Badgers everywhere.
It's a good thing.
We're good.
All right.
Yeah.
Like I said, you guys can talk to me or if you're interacting with each other.
That's, that's a loud, cool.
Okay.
All right.
Chancellor Mnookin, athletic director, McIntosh.
Thanks for joining us both of you.
Thanks for having us.
Great to be here.
So Chancellor, let's start with you.
It's been a few months since we heard the student section chanting to fire the coach.
What have you seen since then that gives you faith that the decision to keep the coach
at the right point?
Well, for one thing, we saw two pretty great victories after that moment against both
Illinois and Washington, but more generally, I think that while last season's football
performance wasn't what any of us would wish for, and it's what, we have to do better
than that.
There's no question about that.
But I also think that what we've seen is that this team can pull together the resources,
the discipline, and the know-how to help Badger football perform at the level that
all of us rightly expect it to.
Athletic director, McIntosh, we've seen headlines about the new recruits coming into the transfer
portal.
What have you seen from inside the building that gives you faith that this next team's
going to perform a lot better?
Well, I mean, there's a lot of excitement around the players that have committed to
play at Wisconsin.
It's been fast and furious for those Badger fans that have been following the news.
It's been a flurry of activity.
You know, at this point in the season, I feel satisfied that we had a plan and we were able
to execute it, and I think we did well in this environment of college athletics and
its dependence on the portal.
At the same time, while I'm excited, you know, we haven't played a snap yet, and we're looking
forward to getting those kids on campus and getting the work, and they'll get to work
right away.
And so, you know, the beginning of a new season for us, there's optimism and excitement, and
like the Chancellor said, there's high expectations, and we all understand that, we embrace that.
It's what attracted us to come here.
It's been a part of who I am as having been part of this program in the past, and I think
that's what's exciting about the future.
Chancellor, there's a lot of things that you have to deal with as the Chancellor of the
University of Wisconsin, national issues have never been hotter than before.
How do you view the athletic department?
Is it something that would be a lot easier if it was something that didn't draw that
much of your attention?
I think, first of all, that we're really proud to be a school that has an amazing athletic
tradition, and we're really committed to our athletic future.
We're really proud of the student-athlete experience, and we're proud of the way that
athletics is a great part of being a student at UW-Madison, whether or not you're a student-athlete,
and also it's a front porch to the University for the whole state of Wisconsin and well
beyond.
It's an absolutely critical part of who we are.
It's not the only part of who we are.
Some fans might think otherwise on that, but we do have a teaching and research mission
too, but athletics is absolutely central to the identity of what it means to be Wisconsin,
and what it means to be a Badger.
You saw Indiana win a national title in football, a program that for years was a
doormat in the Big Ten.
Does that change the expectation for what we should expect out of Wisconsin football?
I don't think it changes the expectation.
I think it demonstrates what's possible, which is much different today than it was not a
long time ago.
I mean, first of all, congratulations to Indiana, kudos to everything they've accomplished.
And go Big Ten.
Yeah, absolutely.
But, you know, it wasn't long ago in which optimism around the program revolved around
the high school kids that you were recruiting, and maybe just maybe four years from now,
we'll see the fruits of that, and that's just not the world we're living in now.
So, you know, their turnaround in a two-year span, while unprecedented, creates optimism
for us, and excitement, and, you know, they have their strategy, and it's obviously
worked.
We're executing ours, and we're optimistic and excited about ours.
For decades, the standard of Wisconsin was to compete for Big Ten titles, and hopefully
in the right scenario, win a national title.
Is that still the standard?
Yes.
Is that still the standard?
Yes.
So, in that sense, you gave the athletic director a contract extension last year, and he's
the one calling the shots here.
What is your confidence level on him, and will he be making the ultimate decisions
on who will run the football program here?
Yes.
I mean, Mac is, I think, a first straight athletic director.
We've had some bumps.
This is a wild ride in college athletics right now.
More has changed over the last couple of years than really in decades.
It's still very much in flux.
So, you know, it's not altogether surprising that there will be, and can be, bumps in
the road.
The need is somebody passionate, committed, and strategic, who also will be accountable
for the program's success, and I have every faith that Mac is going to execute on that
successfully.
But there are fans out there that say, well, one of the reasons that you kept coach Fickel
is because you were the one to hire him, and it would look awkward if you were admitting
in the state to let him go.
Is there any basis in that?
No.
I mean, I had this trend.
I understand, and I appreciate the frustration of our fans sharing it.
But I think, you know, my job was to try to determine what it will take to move us forward
and be successful.
And when we looked at every aspect of our program, certainly with the leadership in our
football program, Coach Fickel, and we weighed that against what we need to be successful
in the future, we realized that we have a great coach here.
We need to do more to invest in the program.
We need to do more to evolve as a program in times, like the Chancellor said, where
it's been unprecedented change.
And like I said, for those reasons, and those reasons alone, that's the reason we retained
coach Fickel and why we're excited about our future.
But, you know, I have no pride in those decisions.
That's, like the Chancellor said, my goal is to position this program to be successful
in the long run, and there's no room for pride in that.
And you look at the revenue coming in, ticket sales make up approximately 19% of the revenue.
The numbers are a year behind for what we have.
We know that ticket sales were down last year, that there were fewer fans in the stands.
Can the Wisconsin sustained a loss of season ticket holders when it comes to the revenue
portion of this?
Well, I think there's a few things that are worth noting.
One, we had an uptick over the last three years in our ticket revenue and our ticket
sales.
That goes against what is kind of a national trend across college athletics.
While the ticket sales went down last year, that is concerning to us.
We feel like we need to earn those ticket holders, their share of wallet and their time
and their dedication, and it's our hope that, you know, this season they'll see the same
optimism that we see, and they'll see the same team on the field that they've grown
accustomed to over the course of decades.
There's no getting around the fact that, you know, football at University of Wisconsin,
that's the financial engine that underwrites the cost of opportunity for all of our sports,
all 23 of our sports, north of 700 athletes, and so it's incredibly important, and it's
something that we continue to work on.
Our ticket sales will be going on sale this week, and there are a lot of people dedicated
to the idea of making sure that our fans are able to connect with this program and
experience it.
It's part of the landscape that's changed, is NIL and the media money, the things that
have changed drastically everywhere.
Is Wisconsin, would they be behind in terms of adapting to that new landscape?
Were they playing by a different set of rules and other universities and may have taken advantage
of how NIL was supposed to be used?
Well, I can say this, you know, we welcomed the House settlement last July, and that
was an opportunity for us to share revenues directly with student athletes, a way for
us to maybe influence our own destiny in ways that we hadn't been able to before.
In the time since House, since that settlement was finalized, took effect, the world has
been, has gone through even more change, and so we continue to adapt and we continue to
iterate.
I think we have along the way, but there's no doubt, like we announced last fall, there
was a need to invest more in football, and that's what we did, and that's what we've
been executing, and I think, you know, the progress we've shown and the success we've
had in the portal just this last week is the first step of many that show the progress
we're making.
The one thing I would add to that is we welcome the House settlement, we welcome the chance
to be able to support athletes directly, and I think we would both welcome, and I
think, frankly, many schools would welcome, a system that did have clearer guardrails
and greater clarity about what was and wasn't permitted.
We are operating all of us in something of a Wild West right now.
That's not the structural environment that I think is really ideal for the future success
of college athletics.
That's not a Wisconsin issue, that's not a big 10 issue, that's not even an NCAA issue,
that's now a national dynamic, but I would love to see greater clarity and rules emerge
that would ensure that we were all playing by kind of the same rule book about what
was and wasn't allowed.
When you are trying to get someone to donate to the University of Wisconsin, are you now
competing with another set of funds in terms of NIL dollars when it used to be contributed
to the university proper or the athletic department?
Is there now another group that's taking from that same pool?
You know, athletics has always been an exciting place for some of our donor group to make
contributions and I don't think that's changed.
One of the wonderful things about Wisconsin is that we are doing a lot of things and a
lot of cylinders and so there's amazing opportunities for those who believe in what we're doing,
whether it's the athletics program or the engineering school or veterinary medicine or
arts, to make a difference and so at some level there's nothing new about that and that's
welcome.
I've spoken to a lot of fans who say that they're happy that college players are getting paid
but that was overdue but at the same time they feel frustrated with the lack of transparency.
How much?
Who's performing?
They're revealing them at a different level and the numbers are not being disclosed.
Why aren't they being disclosed and what would transparency mean?
Yeah, I mean I share, by the way, I share in their sentiment.
I think this is the ability for our student athletes to benefit financially has been a
long time coming and it was a long time overdue so I share in that belief.
I think the landscape has changed so rapidly.
Our fans have done a great job of keeping up with it but it's changing on a daily basis
and the way we operate our department, we need to position our department in a way that
has a competitive advantage against those who we compete with and how we structure our
rev share agreements and how we structure our cap strategy is it's a it's a competitive
it gets into that competitive advantage and so for that reason we haven't been willing
to share too much.
The Big Ten has been negotiating the deal with private equity brokers for a 10% stake
in media rights.
It's been rooming to be up to $2.4 billion, would you support that deal?
At this point there's no deal under active consideration.
As has been publicly reported we were in conversations with actually a pension fund not
exactly private equity about a minority stake in a new enterprise.
I think that the question of how we can work together as a conference to ask are there
revenue and growth opportunities where we can come together to add collective value?
I think that's a really important conversation for us to continue to have and I think as
we look forward I mean you know college football is an area of such passion for so many devoted
fans all across the country and how can we maximize those media opportunities and how
can we continue to grow opportunities for example for women sports what's been happening
in women's volleyball and what's been happening in women's hockey here at Wisconsin or extraordinary.
There's strengths emerging all over the country in women's sports how can working together
lead us to be able to do more and better to support our student athletes to support our
fan base and to support opportunities I think those are those are good questions to be asking.
As university search for new revenue to help compete against other universities in the
same playing field does that just raise the over place the same price as it does in most
together area of economics or is there a competitive advantage that Wisconsin could gain as opposed
to another university with you know what maybe a donor or two that was deeper pockets.
Yeah I mean I think you know it's been our priority to grow our revenues and this is something
that we've been preparing for for years you know the moment we're in right now in terms
of our revenue strategy began we began working on that three years ago and I think you know
with any enterprise it's important to deliver on your customers' expectations and to offer them
what they're asking for and so you know we began to increase our offerings at premium
seating three years ago not just here at Camp Randall but the Cole Center.
We've had a flurry of renewal activity with our partners like Under Armour over the past
few months those are ways to grow revenues we see tremendous opportunity at Badger Sports
Properties our sponsorship arm which has grown year over year for quite some time and I think
we'll continue to grow especially as now our student athletes have the ability to participate
in it to represent brands in a way that sometimes shares the university mark and that's a way to
grow the pie. As you travel and speak with alumni do they bring up sports to you is that one of
sure of course they do and do they bring up the successes I mean as Wisconsin football is that
part of like one of some of the first earliest conversations I've had lots of conversations about
Wisconsin football I've had lots of conversations about other aspects of Wisconsin athletics it's
definitely something that alums talk to me about and sometimes make their feelings known in
in strong terms and there's also a lot of people who believe in this institution and what we're
trying to do athletically and more generally that's one of the incredible really positive things
about the Wisconsin culture and environment wherever you travel there are Badgers everywhere and
there's usually Badgers with opinions and strong feelings and ideas but whether those whether
they're happy with what you're doing or whether they're unhappy that comes from a place of caring
about the institution and its future and believing in it and that's special sauce that's something
really wonderful. Do you have concerns that the transfer portal has changed some of the relationship
with the fact that they aren't four-year students you don't follow someone coming in all the way
through their senior year that some of these players are here on campus for maybe eight months?
I mean I think there are pros and cons with the transfer portal I mean do I miss
do I miss the days when a player is here for four or five years I do I mean I've benefited from a
system like that I can see the merits of it I can see the connection that those players have with
the university and the connection that the university and our fans have with that player
I worry today with in terms of the volume the amount in which players transfer the number of
institutions that they're attending I worry about the educational mission and what that means for
them but at the same time I can't deny the opportunity for a student athlete to participate in a new
system in which they can benefit in many ways one of those financially and try to find success
for themselves and so it's a mixed bag it's not the perfect system like the chancellor my hope is
that there will be stability in the future I don't think this is the ideal system but it's one that
has created a lot of opportunity for a lot of students it's also one in which a lot of student
athletes have sought opportunity and not found it I share those concerns I mean I absolutely
understand that students within a system are going to look for where they're going to find
the best option in all kinds of ways financially in terms of playing time in terms of fit even in
terms of education all of the above but I do worry when I see students going to four or five schools
in four or five years that we are losing something about what it means to be a student athlete
connected to a specific place and bringing this full circle back to the football team and looking
ahead to next year there are people we talked about what is the standard but there are some
people that are talking said well it's got to be bold robust in terms of the success for the
coach next year is that a sentiment that's fair for fans to have that a winning record in a
bowl season should be the minimum I have high expectations for our coaches and our athletic
director and I understand that our fan base does as well the bold robust is that a fair sentiment
I don't think our expectations have changed and I think our intent is to compete at the highest
level I think like I said we've put a plan in place that we feel optimistic will will allow us to do
that right now usually the coaches from the fall get an extension on their contract it's usually
not somewhere in February or March will there be a one-year extension on coach pickles contract
I think that's a conversation that we should take up in February
all right Chancellor Mnuchin, Adi McIntosh thanks for your time
thanks so much for having us and go Batters all right can we just do like 10 seconds of room tone
yep so if we're just gonna give the fan a quietly
awesome and Chancellor can you just give me a nice big clap perfect we're good that stinks all the