Wisconsin Senate passes NIL bill that gives Badgers taxpayer funding

• The Wisconsin state Senate narrowly passed a bill to provide taxpayer funding for university athletic facilities.
• The legislation allocates more than $14 million to UW-Madison and formalizes rules for athlete compensation.
• It includes a controversial public records exemption for athletic department revenue information.
• The bill now awaits a decision from Gov. Tony Evers, who has not yet taken a public stance.

MADISON – The Wisconsin Badgers are one step closer to receiving taxpayer support as they adapt to the changing college sports landscape.

With a one-vote margin, the state Senate on March 17 approved a bill to provide taxpayer funding for athletic facility debt service and formalize rules around name, image and likeness. Eleven Republicans and six Democrats voted in favor of the bill, while seven Republicans and nine Democrats voted against it.

The bill, which the Assembly passed on Feb. 19 with a 95-1 vote, now goes to Gov. Tony Evers’ desk. The governor has not publicly weighed in on the measure.

Neither the Senate nor Assembly debated the bill before their votes.

The legislation would allocate $14.6 million for debt service and maintenance of athletic facilities at UW-Madison – the one power-conference athletic department in the University of Wisconsin System. Another $200,000 each would go to UW-Milwaukee and UW-Green Bay for its athletic facilities.

It also would codify existing rules around athletes’ ability to profit off their name, image and likeness. Athletes also would not be allowed to sign NIL deals that conflict with the university’s existing contracts, involve the athlete’s performance or endorse tobacco, alcohol, gambling, banned or illegal substances or illegal activity.

The legislation also adds a public records exemption that has come under scrutiny from the Wisconsin Newspaper Association, among others. It would exempt “generation, deployment or allocation of revenue” by an athletic department “when competitive reasons require confidentiality.” UW officials have said they are only seeking to “codify our existing practice” of denying certain records due to student privacy law or competitive trade secrets.

Wisconsin athletic director Chris McIntosh previously told the Journal Sentinel that “everything is on the table in terms of increasing revenues and reducing expenses” if the legislation did not pass in this session. He did not directly answer whether that would include cutting sports.

In a recent interview on WISN-TV’s “Upfront,” Sen. Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield, said Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, could face political consequences within his own party if he relied on Democratic votes to pass the legislation.

Asked about opposition to the bill ahead of the Senate vote, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, told reporters it’s a necessity in the environment created by the federal court settlement that allows compensation for college athletes’ name, image and likeness.

“You have to be able to adapt with the times,” Vos said. “I want the Badgers to be able to win. I want to be able to have college athletics for more than just a football and a basketball team, and I want to make sure that we can be competitive.”

Asked about concerns with the bill’s public records exemption, Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein, D-Middleton, suggested that’s something Democrats may seek to change if they win a majority of seats in the November elections.

The Badgers’ efforts to secure taxpayer funding for facilities have come amid rising costs tied to athlete compensation.

Schools can share up to $20.5 million in revenue with athletes, with NIL deals supplementing that. McIntosh said in a public hearing that he has heard anecdotally about peer schools spending $10 million to $20 million “on top of that to have a successful football program.”

“I don’t want to have to choose between a competitive football team and a highly successful Olympic sport program,” McIntosh told the Journal Sentinel.