Wisconsin may not have looked like a top-25 team on the field in recent years, but The Athletic’s latest valuation says the Badgers still belong in a very different conversation.
In a new ranking built from professional sports sales data and adjusted for college football’s financial landscape, Wisconsin comes in at No. 19 nationally with a valuation of $922 million. That puts the Badgers just shy of the $1 billion mark and makes them the eighth-most valuable program in the Big Ten.
The Athletic said its approach was based on real transactions across pro leagues, using those sale prices against average revenue and then applying different models for the Power Four conferences. As The Athletic explained, "We used actual transactions in professional leagues to compare a team’s sale price with its average revenue.
We treated the SEC and Big Ten like NFL and NBA franchises (which have higher ratios of revenue to sales price). The ACC and Big 12 were more like MLB and NHL clubs (which have lower ratios).
In addition to using financial numbers reported by the schools themselves, we also considered factors such as brand power, demographics, and conference realignment to settle on our valuation."
The number itself is eye-catching, but the company Wisconsin keeps is just as telling. Only seven Big Ten programs are valued higher: Texas, Ohio State, Michigan, USC, Penn State, Oregon, Nebraska and Washington. Texas leads the entire list at $2.46 billion.
Wisconsin’s place on the list also puts some familiar regional and conference names in the rearview mirror. Iowa checks in at $806 million, followed by Indiana at $696 million, Michigan State at $686 million, Minnesota at $629 million and Illinois at $568 million.
The Badgers are also ahead of Arkansas, Ole Miss and Missouri, and their valuation tops every Big 12 program. In the ACC, only Miami is higher at $950 million.
That kind of number reinforces what Wisconsin fans already know: even after a few down seasons, the brand still carries real weight. The program’s value hasn’t vanished just because the results have dipped.
It also helps explain the heat that comes with the job. When a program is valued like this, the expectation is not just to stay relevant - it’s to push higher. That pressure has shown up around Chris McIntosh, now Shawn Eichorst, and in the “Fire Fickell” chants that echoed through Camp Randall last season.
The message is pretty clear: Wisconsin isn’t supposed to just sit on a top-20 valuation. The expectation is to build on what Barry Alvarez created and keep climbing.
In Other News...
Former Badger AJ Storr Suddenly Has One More Shot To Recapture It
AJ Storrs college path has taken another unexpected turn, and it gives the former Wisconsin wing one more chance to keep his career going. Storr has been granted an injunction against the NCAA that allows him to play an additional season beyond his original eligibility, putting him back in the mix as a potential late addition for a program looking for experience and scoring on the wing.
Storr is also part of a broader legal challenge to the NCAAs eligibility rules for current and recent players, a case with implications well beyond one former Badgers next stop. For now, the practical result is straightforward: he has entered the transfer portal and will look to spend his final season at a new school, with the larger fight over eligibility still playing out in the background. [Read more 🡒]
Wisconsin Could Get An Unexpected Lance Mason Boost After All
The possibility of Lance Mason back in Madison has gone from remote to at least worth monitoring. A recent court ruling in Colorado ordered the NCAA to allow class of 2022 athletes a fifth year of eligibility, a development that could create a path for older players to return to college football if the ruling holds up.
For Wisconsin, the idea only matters if several things line up, including Masons NFL situation and whatever happens next with the eligibility fight. He is currently with the Seattle Seahawks as an undrafted free agent, so a return to the Badgers would require the next few weeks to break a certain way, and Wisconsin would also have to have the roster room and need once the dust settles. [Read more 🡒]
Braeden Carrington Twist Could Give Wisconsin One More Summer Surprise
A Colorado judges ruling this week could open another unexpected lane in the college basketball calendar, and Wisconsin has reason to keep an eye on it. The order directs the NCAA to allow all athletes who started in the 2022-23 season and have exhausted four years of eligibility by the end of the 2025-26 season to receive an additional year under a new five-year eligibility framework, a move that would ripple across Division I rosters and the portal market.
Braeden Carrington is among the athletes tied to the ongoing litigation, which means the story is far from finished even after the ruling. The NCAA is expected to appeal, and until that process plays out, the practical impact for Wisconsin and other programs stays murky, with another summer roster wrinkle suddenly on the table if the decision holds. [Read more 🡒]