Four things we learned from Wisconsin’s 2024-25 NCAA financial filing

• Media rights income from the Big Ten’s TV deal accounted for nearly a third of the department’s total revenue.
• Volleyball ticket sales saw another significant increase in 2024-25.
• Football and men’s basketball had the highest team-specific operating expenses at $41.5 million and $12.4 million, respectively.

MADISON – The cost of doing business for the Wisconsin Badgers is nearing the $200 million mark.

The Wisconsin athletic department had $197.9 million in total operating revenue and $193.6 million in total operating expenses in the 2024-25 fiscal year, according to the annual financial report that was due to the NCAA this month and obtained by the Journal Sentinel.

Those figures are up from $190.6 million and $186.7 million, respectively, in the 2023-24 fiscal year. They are nearly identical to UW’s $197.7 million in revenue and $194 million in expenses in 2022-23.

The annual NCAA financial filing comes with several caveats. The way that the NCAA measures revenue and expenses are different from the way that universities may internally count revenue and expenses in their operating budgets. (So the $4.3 million difference in revenue and expenses on the NCAA report does not necessarily equate to a $4.3 million profit.)

The 2024-25 fiscal year ended on June 30, 2025, so the report that becomes available in January 2027 will be more illuminating regarding how Wisconsin is using its resources in the era of direct player compensation following the House vs. NCAA settlement.

That being said, here are three takeaways from the financial report:

Wisconsin’s revenue increasingly tied to media rights

As Wisconsin’s revenue continues to increase, the portion that comes from media rights income unsurprisingly also continues to rise.

The Badgers reported $62.9 million in media rights income in 2024-25 – the second year of the Big Ten’s massive media rights deal with Fox, CBS and NBC – which was up $15.5 million from the $47.4 million in 2023-24. That represented 31.8% of UW’s total reported revenue for 2024-25.

The only other categories that made up more than 10% of total revenue were ticket sales (19.4%), contributions (12.9%) and royalties, licensing, advertisement and sponsorships (12.5%).

Wisconsin reported significantly fewer contributions in the 2024-25 report than in the 2023-24 report – a $16.2 million decrease from $41.8 million in 2023-24 to $25.6 million in 2024-25. But Wisconsin reports the philanthropic funding drawn from the UW Foundation rather than how many contributions the foundation received. So a decrease in reported contributions simply indicates less of a reliance on donations for that fiscal year.

Team travel costs are lower in first season of expanded Big Ten

One of Wisconsin’s biggest areas of savings was in team travel.

After spending $13.7 million in team travel in the 2023-24 fiscal year, Wisconsin reported only $11.2 million in spending on team travel in 2024-25 – an 18.1% decrease. The drop in team travel spending was despite the Big Ten’s addition of USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington.

Much of that increase can be tied to men’s basketball, which went from spending $2.4 million on travel in 2023-24 to $1.5 million in 2024-25. Football also saw a drop in travel costs from $3.7 million to $3.2 million, which is unsurprising given the proximity of road games at Iowa and Northwestern.

Ticket revenue was booming for volleyball, stagnant for basketball programs

The Kelly Sheffield-led Wisconsin volleyball program has kept winning on the court and in the box office.

Wisconsin volleyball ticket sales jumped from $1.6 million in the 2023-24 fiscal year to $2.3 million in the 2024-25 fiscal year. It is a 36.8% one-year increase and a remarkable 216.3% three-year increase since Wisconsin’s national-championship-winning season.

Football ticket sales revenue increased from $24.1 million in 2023-24 to $25.8 million in 2024-25 despite subpar results in Luke Fickell’s second season. The Badgers went 5-7 in 2024 and missed a bowl game for the first time since 2001. (The ticket sales figures from Fickell’s most recent 4-8 season will be in the 2025-26 NCAA financial report that comes out in January 2027.)

Men’s and women’s basketball each experienced decreases in ticket sales in 2024-25. Greg Gard’s program saw a slight dip from roughly $6.7 million to $6.6 million in ticket sales, and women’s basketball saw a drop from $333,584 to $265,680 in Marisa Moseley’s final season at the helm.

Wisconsin women’s basketball benefited in 2023-24 from a home game against Caitlin Clark and Iowa women’s basketball, which drew sellouts across the country. With Clark off to the WNBA and Iowa not on the home slate in 2024-25, UW did not have that same boost.

An athletic department spokesman said the 2024-25 women’s basketball ticket sales were in line with expectations, and the slight fluctuation for men’s basketball was a result of the home schedule being “less conducive for single-game ticket sales.”

Which Wisconsin teams had biggest budgets in 2024-25

Nearly half of Wisconsin’s total operating expenses – $88.9 million of the $193.6 million – were not attributed to a specific team. That keeps any comparisons between different programs at different schools – Wisconsin football vs. Illinois football, for example – from being apples-to-apples.

But the total operating expenses reported for each team does give some idea of where the Badgers are devoting their financial resources within the athletic department. Here are the six teams that had the highest team-specific total operating expenses in 2024-25:

• Football: $41.5 million
• Men’s basketball: $12.4 million
• Men’s ice hockey: $5.5 million
• Women’s volleyball: $5.3 million
• Women’s basketball: $5.2 million
• Women’s ice hockey: $4.3 million

All other UW teams were below $4 million. Men’s tennis had the lowest total operating expenses of any UW team at just over $1 million.