UW's revenue from Big Ten media rights climbed from $20,432,139 in '16-17 to $39,770,909 in '17-18GETTY IMAGES
The Wisconsin athletic department received more than $39.7M in "conference media contract revenue" for FY '17-18, "nearly double its take from the previous year," according to Todd Milewski of the WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL. New "six-year Big Ten football and basketball deals with Fox, CBS and ESPN" went into effect in the most recent fiscal year, and combined, they totaled $2.64B. UW's revenue from Big Ten media rights climbed from $20.43M in '16-17 to $39.77M in '17-18. UW Associate AD/Business Operations Mario Morris said, "It becomes a large part of the budget, which makes you a little bit nervous, right? We talk about the fragility of college athletics and not knowing what’s going to happen with those rights in the future. The Big Ten gives us information that only goes out a couple years. For right now, they’re projecting that it’s relatively stable." Morris said that overall, the athletic department had a "net positive margin of $271,834" in '17-18 and had more than $1.3M in cash on hand as of June 30. Milewski notes revenue topped $133.6M -- up 5% over '16-17. Expenses were more than $133.3M. Total revenue from the Big Ten was $51.6M, including an $8.2M "share of football bowl payouts" and $3.9M from the NCAA. The $31.4M from ticket sales was also 5.5% "higher than budgeted by the department" (WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, 11/19).
