University of Wisconsin: staying focused on donor relations and student success

This blog summarizes the key takeaways from our fiscal resiliency podcast, episode 20.

Adam Barnes, Associate Athletic Director of Business Operations and CFO for the University of Wisconsin’s (UW) Athletic Department, recently joined Dave Capitano, Baker Tilly’s higher education industry practice leader and Katlyn Andrews, a higher education risk advisory manager with Baker Tilly, on the firm’s Higher Ed Advisor podcast series. The discussion focused on how UW’s athletic department and finance committee maintained financial resiliency in the early months of COVID-19 while expanding a program to support student athletes on and off the playing field. Barnes also talked about the key partnerships the university has engaged in to improve the use of key financial data as well as support athletes as they gain more control over the use of their name, image and likeness (NIL).

Barnes oversees an annual budget of approximately $160 million. The major revenue streams are media rights ($55 million), ticket sales ($35 million) and donors ($15 million). He noted that since media rights are negotiated more at the conference level than the individual school level, his team focuses on key revenue streams over which they have the most control – ticket sales and donors.

“When we talk about strategic initiatives, I like to start with who is our customer,” Barnes said. “Sometimes our work is focused on our donors, and sometimes we're focused on our current student athletes or prospective student athletes. Different audiences require slightly different perspectives and approaches.”

The COVID-19 pause

Barnes shared that their strategy at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 – the COVID-19 pause – reinforced the university development office’s “Badger Legacy” campaign. In early 2020, the school had already collected much of the ticket revenue for the year 2020 sporting events without knowing if they would even be able to have games or allow spectators into games. The development office was able to convince two-thirds of all ticket holders to either donate their money or roll it forward for tickets in a future year, which helped the university’s athletic programs from a cash flow perspective.

Barnes noted that COVID-19 accelerated some things that the university already planned to do. In 2021, the university launched a “Power of Us” campaign focusing more intentionally on diversity in the athletics department, the campus community and the larger metro community. The university is also looking at ways of improving the fan and student athlete experience from a safety perspective, from upgrading HVAC within its athletic facilities to upgrading its ticket platform to a “touchless” experience with electronic and mobile tickets.