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

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.

Finance

New Resource: Finance Fundamentals – Richardson ISD

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New Resource: Finance Fundamentals – Richardson ISD

We’ve launched a new Finance Fundamentals page to help our community better understand how Richardson ISD’s budget works. This resource breaks down where funding comes from, how dollars are spent, and how financial decisions support students and schools.

Whether you’re a parent, staff member, or community member, this page offers a clear, easy-to-understand look at district finances.

Explore the Finance Fundamentals webpage.

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Finance

India’s Adani Green quarterly profit slumps on higher finance costs

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India’s Adani Green quarterly profit slumps on higher finance costs

BENGALURU, Jan 23 (Reuters) – India’s Adani Green Energy posted a 99% drop in third‑quarter profit on Friday, as higher finance costs inflated its ​expenses and offset gains from strong power sales and improved capacity ‌utilisation.

Shares of Adani Group’s green arm were down 13.8%.

Group stocks fell 2% to 11% after the ‌U.S. SEC sought court approval to serve summons to Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani by email in a fraud and $265 million bribery case.

For Adani Green, consolidated profit slumped to 50 million rupees ($544,051.88) in the quarter ended December 31, from 4.74 billion rupees ⁠a year earlier.

A sharp ‌27.14% rise in expenses to 29.61 billion rupees and a 35.73% surge in finance costs absorbed most of the company’s topline, ‍even as power sales remained strong.

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The company also booked a 1.03 billion rupees from its associates and joint ventures, offering a modest cushion to earnings.

Power consumption in India is expected ​to rise as the economy expands, requiring an estimated 40% increase in ‌coal‑fired capacity to more than 307 gigawatts by 2035, according to government projections.

The country, which currently meets about a third of its power demand from thermal plants, aims to achieve net‑zero emissions by 2070 and plans to more than double its renewable capacity to 500 gigawatts as part of that effort.

Finance costs for ⁠the company include interest on borrowings as well ​as currency‑related gains and losses on its foreign‑currency ​loans and the impact of derivative hedges used to manage those exposures.

The renewable energy arm of billionaire Gautam Adani’s group, which operates ‍solar, wind and ⁠hybrid assets across India, said revenue from power supply rose 21% to 19.93 billion rupees, helped by 5.6 GW of capacity additions over the ⁠past year.

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The company said the growth also reflected strong plant performance and the commissioning of new ‌capacity at resource‑rich sites in Khavda, Gujarat, and in Rajasthan.

($1 = 91.9030 ‌Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Yagnoseni Das in Bengaluru)

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Why I’m Not Reporting on Campaign Finance Reports Right Now – Montgomery Perspective

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Why I’m Not Reporting on Campaign Finance Reports Right Now – Montgomery Perspective

By Adam Pagnucco.

Yesterday was the deadline for candidates to file their Annual 2026 campaign finance reports.  It’s an important moment in this election season as candidates show their financial strength heading into the period when voters are paying attention.  For candidates in traditional financing, the next report is not due until April 21.  So normally, I would be crunching and reporting on all of these numbers, at least for candidates in Montgomery County.

But I’m not going to do that quite yet.

The reason is that the State Board of Elections (SBE) just rolled out a new reporting system for campaign finances and many candidates are struggling to use it.  I have been using this data for almost 20 years and I have never heard complaints of such volume and ferocity as those I have received this week.  (An aside: I’m a former campaign treasurer and you better believe I will never be one again after this!)  I can’t get into the specifics of these complaints because it would risk compromising my sources, something I will never do.  But I expect there to be MANY late reports and amended reports as campaigns try to report accurate information while minimizing fines – fines for which most of them bear no responsibility.

As an analyst, these failures impede my ability to analyze campaign finance data.  First, SBE has inexplicably removed all campaign finance information predating the 2019-22 cycle from its website.  Previously, the site included data from 2005 on.  I asked SBE to fix this issue last month.  They told me it would be fixed.  It has not been fixed.  Until it is, my ability to provide historical context is limited at best.

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Second, I have noticed that on some reports, the summary sheets do not match the totals of downloaded data.  I don’t know why.  For now, I am going to rely on the spreadsheet downloads, but that is going to limit my processing speed.

Third, loans previously appeared in contribution downloads.  Now they don’t.  Instead, I have to locate them in individual filings and manually enter them.  There is no reason why this change needed to occur.

Fourth, aggregate totals for contributions appear to be inaccurate in some reports.  That’s a big deal for candidates in public financing, who are currently limited to $500 per individual in this cycle.  If their aggregates are inaccurately reported as higher than $500, they will appear to be in violation of the public financing law when they in fact did nothing wrong.

Finally, I expect a significant volume of amendments as candidates work through their issues with the reporting software.  That’s a problem because the data in any analysis that I do may shift without warning.  Analyses of data like this take a long time, and changes due to state reporting issues will undermine that work.  Let’s just stipulate that when I start posting analyses, the resulting data will be estimates at best.

As a result of the above issues and others, I’m reluctant to start crunching this data right now.  At minimum, I’m going to wait a few days while candidates resolve their issues with SBE.

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New reporting systems always have glitches and this one has to cover hundreds of accounts and millions of records from all across Maryland.  SBE should have rolled out this new system at the start of a campaign cycle when the stakes are lower and glitches can be fixed quietly.  By rolling it out in the heat of election season, when lots of new candidates are filing and all of them are scrambling to show their strength, SBE has compounded its problems and hindered analysis of campaign finances.

All of this is tremendously unfair to the folks who are running for office as well as their treasurers.  For their sake as well as that of the public, these problems must be fixed as soon as possible.

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