The last time the University of Wisconsin athletic department did not include a ticket price increase in its annual budget, its football team couldn’t fill Camp Randall, its basketball and hockey teams were playing in homey but outdated venues, and its entire spending authority amounted to $16.5 million.
How times have changed.
At a meeting of the UW Athletic Board’s finance committee on Tuesday, associate athletic director for finance John Jentz presented a preliminary 2008-09 budget that tops out at $89.9 million — but includes no ticket price hikes for the first time since 1992, a review of documents by The Capital Times indicates.
Jentz said UW was able to keep ticket prices static thanks to an infusion of $4.1 million from the Big Ten Network — the athletic department’s share of the $6.2 million annual payout from the fledgling network, with the remainder going to campus for scholarships and library use.