The 2025 Badgers are on track to have the program’s worst record since 1990 and risk finishing winless in Big Ten play — something they haven’t done in 35 years. While bad football is painful to Badger fans, it may also hurt the state economy, experts say.
According to a report published by the Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy (CROWE), Badger football’s poor performance could diminish economic activity in Madison by $160 million and the state by $280 million annually. These potential losses are driven by lower attendance, reduced gameday spending and decreased tourism.
For Badger fans, the impact of poor football is both personal and financial. Ian, a season ticket holder from Madison, told The Daily Cardinal he decided not to renew season tickets after seeing a 37-0 homecoming loss to the Iowa Hawkeyes.
“We couldn’t justify spending $1,200+ per year to watch the Badgers get blown out by every Big Ten opponent,” Ian said.
Ian will join the growing number of fans not renewing their season tickets. The CROWE report found a significant drop in sales, from 42,197 in 2024 — when the Badgers missed their first bowl game in 23 years — to 38,082 in 2025. With a historically bad 2025 football campaign, that number is primed to drop even further.
While season ticket sales are just one revenue source for the athletic department, poor football drives fans away from Madison and the state as a whole, creating an economic ripple effect.
The CROWE report concluded that success in both football and in the economy requires strategic investments from the athletic department that “target physical capital (training facilities) and human capital (players, coaches and staff), including enhanced recruiting budgets and competitive NIL spending and compensation for players and coaches.”
After the Badgers’ 34-0 loss to Ohio State, Athletics Director Chris McIntosh promised more financial support for football in a public letter to fans, saying his department “must provide our coaches the tools necessary to succeed.”
McIntosh specifically highlighted “more Athletics-funded investments in infrastructure, staffing and most importantly, student-athlete recruiting and retention.”
He said a “new era of college athletics” makes these investments necessary, but warned fans the impacts may not be immediate.
For Doug McLeod, chair of the UW Athletic Board, those investments are easier said than done.
“NIL [name, image and likeness] has fundamentally changed how athletics operate,” McLeod told the Cardinal. “Every single school is grappling with the same kind of issues right now.”
Still, Wisconsin remains behind its Big Ten competitors in NIL funding. According to the report, the Badgers reported $8.98 million in collective NIL funding last year — more than $10 million less than the conference’s top spender, Ohio State.
The importance of NIL spending is evident in the new era of college football. The conference’s top four spenders — Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and Indiana — have all either won a national championship or earned a playoff spot in the last two seasons.
McLeod stressed that Wisconsin’s athletic funding operates differently than many of its competitors.
“The money you pay for tuition often goes to athletics at other schools,” he said. “We don’t do that here, and I think we should all be pretty proud of that.”
Unlike many of its peers in the Big Ten, UW does not directly allocate student tuition to the athletic department. Instead, the athletic department is mainly funded through self-generated revenue and segregated university fees — fees that students pay separate from tuition.
McLeod emphasized that the current situation has no easy answers.
“People have to be patient and understand how complicated the situation is. Programs take time to build,” he said.
