So, is your trip out west personal, business, little both?
I was meeting with alums and friends of the university from Monday to Thursday, and I
could have come back Friday morning, but I thought, maybe I'll come back some day.
It's not great.
It was so...
You looked at the forecast.
Exactly.
I don't know.
The alumni groups are...
I hope they're...
Wonderful.
Yes.
We have a lot of really great...
I mean, we weren't doing any large-scale alumni events.
This was more...
I...
I was also in Argentina over when her break, and I was out to dinner, and there was...
Turned out to be a Badger freshman and her parents at the same restaurant, so...
And did...
They recognized you?
Oh, yes.
So...
The...
The daughter was a little nervous about coming over, so the dad did an amazing job.
Oh, sure.
Yes.
Anywhere 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 allowed.
Okay.
All right.
Chancellor Mnuchin, athletic director of Macintosh.
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 was the right one?
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 of Macintosh, 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 is
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.
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, 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 it's 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 we're not 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.
We 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.
First of all, congratulations to Indiana kudos to everything they've accomplished.
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.
And 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 at 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 for you?
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 in him and will he be making the ultimate decisions on who
runs 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 lead 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.
There are fans out there that say, well, one of the reasons that you kept Coach Fickel
is because you were the one that hired him.
It would look awkward if you were admitting a mistake to let him go.
Is there any basis in that?
No.
I mean, 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, it's been unprecedented change.
And like I said, for those reasons, and those reasons alone, that's the reason we retain
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.
When 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 Wisconsin sustain 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've 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 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.
But there's no getting around the fact that 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.
Part of the landscape that's changed is NIL and the media money and the things that have changed drastically everywhere.
Is Wisconsin, were they behind in terms of adapting to that new landscape?
Were they playing by a different set of rules than 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 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.
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 contribute 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 pool, 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 now, that that was overdue,
but at the same time they feel frustrated with the lack of transparency.
How much, who's performing, they're dealing them at a different level and the numbers are not being disclosed.
Why aren't they being disclosed and what would transparency mean?
By the way, I share in their sentiment.
I think 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.
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.
It's a competitive advantage, and so for that reason we haven't been willing to share too much.
The Big Ten has been negotiating a deal with private equity brokers for a 10% stake in media rights.
It's been rumored to be up to $2.4 billion.
Do 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, 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, for example, for women's sports?
What's been happening in women's volleyball, and what's been happening in women's hockey
here at Wisconsin are extraordinary.
There's strengths emerging all over the country in women's sports.
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 good questions to be asked of.
Has university searched for new revenue to help compete against other universities
in the same playing field?
Does that just raise the overpriced, the same price as it does in most of the other area of economics?
Or is there a competitive advantage that Wisconsin could gain,
as opposed to another university with, you know, 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 years, you know,
the moment we're in right now, in terms of our revenue strategy,
we began working on that three years ago, and I think, you know,
with any enterprise, it's important to deliver on your customer's expectations
and to offer them what they're asking for.
And so, you know, we began to increase our offerings of 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?
Sure, of course they do.
And do they bring up the successes?
I mean, Wisconsin football is that part of one 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 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 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 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 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.
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 I've talked to that said, well, it's got to be bold or bust 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.
Is bold or bust? 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 allow us to do that.
Right now, usually the coaches from the fall get an extension on their contract, and it's usually not somewhere in February or March.
Will there be a one-year extension on Coach Fickles' contract?
I think that's a conversation that we should take up in February.
Alright.
Chancellor Mnuchin, ADM after touch. Thanks for your time.
Thanks so much for having us.
And go Badgers.
Alright.
Can we just do like 10 seconds of room tone?
Yep.
We're just going to hear the fan real quietly.
Awesome. And Janice, could you just give me a nice big clap?
Perfect. We're good.
That sinks all the audio for the cameras.
Alright. Thank you.
We really appreciate your time. Thank you.
Absolutely.