MADISON – Chris McIntosh is leaving at a critical time for the Wisconsin Badgers.
The UW athletic director’s departure for a job in the Big Ten office, effective April 13, comes as the Badgers are at a crossroads in many regards.
Football is coming off its first back-to-back losing seasons since the early 1990s. Men’s basketball finished the season ranked although another early NCAA Tournament exit left fans with a sour taste.
Volleyball and men’s and women’s hockey are among the programs that will be looking to sustain high levels of success.
Here are three of the many questions that McIntosh’s permanent successor will face whenever they start the job:
How do you get football back on track?
This is the $114 million question for Wisconsin. (That’s roughly how much income was attributed to football in the most recent annual NCAA financial filing.)
Wisconsin’s football program has suffered an obvious slide during McIntosh’s tenure.
The Badgers went from nine wins in 2021 – McIntosh’s first season as AD – to seven wins each in 2022 and 2023, five wins in 2024 and four wins in 2025.
McIntosh fired Paul Chryst during the 2022 season, opted against permanently promoting Jim Leonhard and brought in Luke Fickell – a coach that received high grades from pundits at the time, but has gone 10-17 in Big Ten games.
Even before the NIL era, an uncompetitive football team would have financial consequences that could have a ripple effect across an athletic department. That is especially an area of concern amid the current arms race for NIL funding to supplement the official player compensation cap.
McIntosh has stuck with Fickell through the first three seasons while pledging more resources for the football program. If results don’t get better in Fickell’s fourth season, McIntosh’s successor will have to decide whether they do the same.
How competitive can Wisconsin be in NIL era?
NIL funding has obviously become a key for roster-building as teams look for a boost beyond what the $20.5 million revenue-sharing cap can provide. McIntosh himself said while lobbying for the recently approved NIL bill that peers are spending $10 million to $20 million “on top of that to have a successful football program.”
The lack of financial transparency regarding player compensation – both at Wisconsin and elsewhere – makes it difficult to truly verify any claims about where the Badgers stand among Big Ten peers. But the Badgers’ need for revenue was evident when McIntosh said “everything is on the table” without the NIL bill that later passed.
Whether it be concerts or new sponsorship opportunities like jersey patches, the Badgers have creatively tapped into new revenue sources to adapt to this era. UW’s contract extension with apparel provider Under Armour provides a key pathway to divert more funds toward NIL.
But if UW fans don’t renew season tickets after back-to-back losing seasons, the Badgers could face a challenging financial reality at a time when NIL dollars are critical.
Who is the next AD’s permanent boss?
It’s unclear who will be the next UW athletic director’s boss – and the boss of their boss – at this point.
UW chancellor Jennifer Mnookin is leaving to become the next president at Columbia University. Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman was recently fired. (Eric Wilcots, the dean of the College of Letters & Science, will be the interim chancellor.)
Many of the challenges facing Wisconsin’s next AD also will be challenges facing Wilcots in the short term, as well as the permanent chancellor in the long term.
The current turnover presents some obvious uncertainty for any candidate who is wondering who they would be working with and how much support they would get. UW has many other enviable aspects, though, including its place in the financially-fortunate Big Ten and foothold in the larger Milwaukee market.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 3 questions for Wisconsin Badgers’ next AD as Chris McIntosh departs
Reporting by John Steppe, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
