University of Wisconsin-Madison community members, student organizations, alumni and local companies joined together for an evening of celebration and togetherness at Friday’s annual Homecoming Parade.
UW-Madison police reported that 28 people were ejected from Camp Randall Stadium and 16 were arrested during Saturday’s Badgers game against Iowa.
A sellout crowd quietly watched as Iowa routed Wisconsin 37-0.
Remember when the Badgers football team competed for the Big Ten championship and a trip to the Rose Bowl? If so, your memory would have to go back a few years. Remember when the Badgers lost to a so-so, 20th ranked Michigan team by 14 points and that was considered a moral victory? You’d have to think all the way back to last Saturday for that one. It might be fresher in your mind.
Multiple streets near campus will be close on Friday for the University of Wisconsin-Madison Homecoming Parade.
“Just getting on campus and getting to see the school and going through the process, it became very clear to me that Wisconsin is where I wanted to be and that was going to be my home,” Emily Pohl said. “And I’m really excited about it.”
Pohl, who described herself as a power forward with a high compete level, led Hill-Murray to the Minnesota state high school championship last season as a sophomore with 41 goals and 74 points in 31 games.
The University of Wisconsin athletic department has a new site planned for its hall of fame.
Initial plans show the plaques honoring former Badgers athletes, coaches and administrators moving from near Camp Randall Stadium to near the main entry to the Kohl Center.
As Wisconsin Football takes on Iowa this weekend for the Badgers’ homecoming game, fans can enjoy pregame festivities at Badger Bash. Badger Bash begins 2-and-a-half hours before every home football game at Union South.
With the game starting off at 6 p.m. Saturday, this week’s Badger Bash will start at 3:30 p.m.
Anyone and everyone is being called to roll up a sleeve to support the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s annual homecoming blood drive. The blood drive is part of a nationwide effort and competition through Abbott and the Big Ten.
While the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Athletic Hall of Fame is set to move next year, commemorative bricks purchased by Badgers fans will stay near Camp Randall Stadium, an administrator said Tuesday.
The athletics department plans to relocate the Hall of Fame outside of the Kohl Center, where the school’s basketball teams play. About a mile east of UW-Madison’s football stadium, the Kohl Center is a “prime location” on campus that attracts thousands each year, said Jason King, UW-Madison’s senior associate athletic director for capital projects and operations.
Part of the shipment of food to be prepared for the next week’s University of Wisconsin football game arrived, as usual, at Camp Randall Stadium on a Thursday. The collection was short in one product that in Wisconsin almost certainly would get noticed if concession stands ran out early: There weren’t enough brats.
In the short term, a search gathered enough supply of the brats to get Wisconsin through the football season before pivoting. Over the following months, chefs went through a taste-testing process that informed how they were planning to move forward.
Marek Michalicka will make $125,000 this year in base salary, according to records released to BadgerExtra by the university through a public records request. This is his first college head coaching position.
He was hired for the job after Kelcy McKenna left for Southern Methodist in August just before the start of what would have been her 10th season in charge. She made $153,816 last season after starting with a $95,000 salary in 2016.
It’s Bucky Badger’s birthday.
The design for the mascot was copyrighted on Oct. 2, 1940, after an illustrator sketched the likeness of an upright badger wearing a cardinal and white sweater. The Library of Congress deemed this Bucky’s birthday.
On this day October 2, 1940 “Buckingham Badger,” better known as “Bucky,” was born at UW-Madison.
A Badger mascot has been used by the university since 1889 when intercollegiate football was established.
Former Wisconsin men’s basketball standout guard Brad Davison is joining Greg Gard’s staff as the Badgers’ special assistant to the head coach, the team announced on Sept. 29 via a press release.
Growing up in Dallas, the general manager of the Wisconsin football program watched his father, Marvin, a former football coach, turn down better jobs in favor of the program that was a project.
College athletics, as Wisconsin men’s basketball coach Greg Gard sees it, is “slowly moving towards a more stable environment.”
A sixth former University of Wisconsin women’s basketball player has joined a lawsuit claiming psychological abuse by former coach Marisa Moseley.
First-year University of Wisconsin women’s basketball coach Robin Pingeton had a plan for the first week she spent with her team this summer.
Casey Rabach grew accustomed to Bill Ferrario being by his side in life’s biggest moments.
University of Wisconsin men’s basketball coach John Powless was willing to play shorthanded to teach a valuable lesson.
Bill Ferrario, a four-year starter who was part of two Big Ten Conference and Rose Bowl championship Wisconsin teams in 1999-2000, died unexpectedly early Tuesday morning. He turned 47 on Monday. Details of his death have not been publicly released, but multiple former teammates who spoke to BadgerExtra on and off the record said he lost his battle to addiction.
When the University of Wisconsin-Madison launched a Women’s Physical Education Department in 1912, Wisconsin women did not have the right to vote. Women, only reluctantly admitted to UW-Madison in the first place, faced scientific misconceptions, double standards and restrictions from administration. But the department itself was always years ahead of its time, alumni said, from its early days to its eventual merger with the men’s program in 1976.
New season ticket sales have spiked from 151 in 2024-25 to currently 609 before this. That’s all while 93% of existing season ticket holders have renewed for 2025-26 — an increase from the previous season.
The success of this summer’s Morgan Wallen and Coldplay concerts suggests that the stage is set for the University of Wisconsin’s football stadium to continue serving as a venue for big-name acts.
The comeback is nearly three decades in the making. Before this summer, Camp Randall Stadium last held a major music concert in 1997: the year Princess Diana died, the first “Harry Potter” book was published and the WNBA debuted. On Oct. 6, The Rolling Stones thrilled more than 27,000 local fans at Camp Randall as part of their Bridges to Babylon Tour.
It’s a cycle. Embrace it.
I became a fan when the University of Wisconsin Badgers football team went 0-9-1 in 1967. The losses make the wins more special. UW can rise again, but we need to set realistic expectations and enjoy the bumpy journey.
Badgers were spotted at Sandburg Elementary on Monday helping students get excited about reading.
The partnership between the Wisconsin Badger football program and Madison Metropolitan School District helps UW athletes give back to the community through the support of the district’s reading literacy initiative.
Barry Alvarez is not a fan of the “Fire Fickell” chants that occurred during Wisconsin’s Week 4 loss to Maryland. The revered former Wisconsin football coach and athletic director made that abundantly clear during the Sept. 23 episode of ESPN Madison’s Barry Alvarez Show.
“I think it’s embarrassing,” Alvarez said. “I think it’s terrible, despicable. They’re spoiled rotten.”
Chris McIntosh expressed his confidence in University of Wisconsin football coach Luke Fickell after a second straight blowout loss Saturday.
UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin now has given McIntosh, the Badgers athletic director, a public vote of confidence. Mnookin declined an interview request by BadgerExtra through a spokesperson Monday but issued a brief statement.
UW-Madison police reported that 30 people were ejected from Camp Randall Stadium and 18 were arrested during Saturday’s game between the Badgers and Maryland.
Of those arrested, 10 were UW students. Of the ejections, 18 were UW students.
The announced attendance of 65,952 for the Aug. 28 opener against Miami (Ohio) was the lowest for a first home game of a season since 1992. After Wisconsin announced a 70,368 figure for the Sept. 6 game against Middle Tennessee State, its average from the first two games was down 10% from the same window of the 2024 season.
Aniya Warren’s Wisconsin volleyball teammates were in for quite the surprise when they saw an Instagram post from the freshman libero.
When Warren was not preparing for her first year of college volleyball this summer, she was writing a now-published children’s book.
Lawyers for the University of Miami said the University of Wisconsin and its athletics collective are on an “impermissible fishing expedition” in a request for documents and a deposition of former Badgers football player Xavier Lucas.
The Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs opened its lottery for veterans and active service members to receive up to two free tickets to the Wisconsin Badgers’ Salute to Veterans football game on Nov. 8 vs. the Washington Huskies.
Next year also marks the end of Wisconsin’s 10-year contract with Under Armour. UW has not yet announced a new agreement, and what athletic department officials can say is limited until the next outfitting agreement is finalized.
ormer Wisconsin center and NBAassistant coach Kim Hughes has died at age 73.
Kim Hughes had 39 career double-doubles in three seasons with the Badgers. More than 50 years after his time at UW concluded, Hughes remains in the top 10 in program history with 806 rebounds in his three seasons on the court.
Kim Hughes, who starred as a center for the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team before embarking on a long professional career as both a player and coach, died this weekend. He was 73.
Lexi Westley comes from a family of coaches and athletes. But it took what she calls a “terrifying” experience with a coach at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to motivate her to pursue coaching herself.
A little more than three years after coach Mackenzie Wartenberger resigned from her position as head coach of the UW-Madison women’s cross country team, Westley and four of her teammates are coming forward about what they call abusive behavior by Wartenberger.
Badgers fans love to win. But more important than any championship are the lives and wellbeing of the student athletes in red and white. They face enormous pressure to succeed in their sports, often with scholarships and additional compensation at stake.
That’s what makes the State Journal’s recent investigation into the women’s cross country and basketball teams so troubling. Winning, or trying to, trumped the best interests of students.
Prices might be going up elsewhere but it costs the same to buy a beer at Camp Randall Stadium this season as it did in 2024.
Cans of Coors Light, Varsity Golden Ale, Modelo and other beers were priced at $11.99 when the University of Wisconsin football team opened the 2025 season Thursday night. Other alcoholic beverages like Blue Moon, Ninja Dust and Nutrl were listed at $12.49.
The University of Wisconsin’s new indoor practice facility has a name: the Kellner Family Athletic Center.
Wisconsin officially unveiled the moniker for the $285 million facility at an event before Thursday’s football season opener against Miami (Ohio) at Camp Randall Stadium.
Downtown Madison turned into a sea of red Thursday as fans celebrated the first Badger game day of the season. From early morning tailgates to downtown bars, thousands filled the streets to mark the return of Wisconsin football.
Wisconsin will host its annual Red-White Scrimmage on Oct. 19 at noon in the Kohl Center, it announced in a release Wednesday afternoon. The intra-squad scrimmage is ticketed, yet free, and fans can redeem their reserved seat tickets online in advance for a first look at this upcoming season’s Badgers team.
New UW–Madison students gathered at Camp Randall Stadium Wednesday evening to learn game day traditions and take the annual “W” photo on the field.
Sure, there are other marching band houses on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus: Tuba Haus, Clarinest, Pi Palace (for the saxophones), Bone Zone (trombones). Nine in all. But only Trumpet Haus — Thaus, for short — lays claim to being the unofficial game day hype committee. This is where a lucky few trumpet players in the UW Marching Band call home.
Clarence Sherrod, one of the top scorers in University of Wisconsin men’s basketball history, died Aug. 18. He was 75.
Sherrod was a three-year starter at guard for Wisconsin from 1969 to 1971. He was the leading scorer for the program’s 1970-71 team, a squad that averaged the most points per game in a single season in team history at 86.3 points per game.
Camp Randall Stadium will be aglow in red in a way never seen before for a University of Wisconsin football home game Thursday night.
Wisconsin on Tuesday gave a sneak peek at the stadium’s new LED lights and how they can be programmed to fill the venue with colors and not just light up the field.
Badger Bash begins 2-and-a-half hours before every home football game at Union South.
With the game against Miami of Ohio kicking off at 8 p.m. Thursday, this week’s Badger Bash will start at 5:30 p.m.
University of Wisconsin football player Nyzier Fourqurean scored a small win in court Aug. 25.
Wisconsin district judge William Conley denied part of the NCAA’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit Fourqurean filed against it in July that seeks declaratory, injunctive and monetary relief against the NCAA for its rules related to how many years a student-athlete is eligible to play NCAA Division I football.
The University of Wisconsin pulled in more than $3 million from alcohol sales at Camp Randall Stadium.
This marked the first year alcohol was sold during a full Badger football season, as well as three sold-out concerts. Patrick Herb, UW’s assistant athletic director for strategic communication, described the first year as a success both financially and operationally.
Alexis Duckett, Krystyna Ellew, Mary Ferrito, Tara Stauffacher and Tessa Towers filed a 51-page lawsuit Friday in federal court, also accusing Moseley of retaliation and discrimination.
The former players’ lawsuit named Moseley, the Wisconsin Board of Regents and former senior associate athletic director Justin Doherty, the sport administrator for basketball, as defendants.
The athletic department had more than $3 million in alcohol purchases from seven home games last season, the first with sales open to everyone of legal age instead of only those in suites and clubs.
The impact of expanded alcohol sales on businesses around the stadium who also sell beer wasn’t as pronounced as owners and managers feared a year ago. But the Dillises are among those feeling changes on game days.
McIntosh qualified for a bonus of more than $76,000 in the first year of a reworked contract that includes incentive compensation tied to athletes’ academic performance and coaching bonuses.
The University of Miami asked a judge to dismiss or scale back a case alleging it interfered with agreements for a former University of Wisconsin football player.
Miami filed a motion Friday to dismiss a complaint filed in Dane County Circuit Court in June by Wisconsin and collective VC Connect that alleged Miami tampered with cornerback Xavier Lucas.
UW-Madison will be hosting swimming and diving squads this winter for the 2025-26 Olympic sports championships and tournaments.
The Big Ten Conference announced the dates and host sites Wednesday. The fall season is kicking off on Oct. 31 at Michigan State, with the Spartans hosting cross country championships from Nov. 6-9.
University of Wisconsin football fans have new options to fly nonstop from Madison for two road games in 2025.
American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines have added direct flights from Dane County Regional Airport on the weekends of Badgers games at Alabama and Oregon.
Heads up, Badgers fans! The Dane County Regional Airport has announced the return of nonstop flights to select University of Wisconsin-Madison football games.
These flights, as provided by Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, and United Airlines, offer UW football fans to travel to the University of Alabama and University of Oregon.
Given how well this summer’s concerts at Camp Randall Stadium were received, music fans might not have to wait another 28 years to attend another.
“The overall success of these shows demonstrates that we are capable operationally of hosting more shows and there is definitely an appetite and demand for more in the future,” said Mitchell Pinta, deputy athletic director and chief revenue officer for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s athletics department.
“Don’t leave your seat at the end of the third quarter,” they wrote. “That’s when Wisconsin fans ‘Jump Around’ to the 1992 House of Pain classic of the same name, often causing Camp Randall to shake and vibrate. The tradition started in 1998, took a very brief, highly controversial hiatus in 2003 and became a rallying cry during the Badgers’ development into a Big Ten powerhouse under former coaches Barry Alvarez and Bret Bielema.”
After three successful shows in the last month at Camp Randall — the first in 28 years — Madison is back on the map for the biggest musical acts. The city, its boosters and the university should do everything it can to keep it that way.
“I think a bunch of J.J.’s message was, in my mind, grasping on to that idea of what humble and hungry looks like, and what being an underdog really is,” Badgers coach Luke Fickell said July 23 during Big Ten media day at Mandalay Bay Resort. “He didn’t say it, but I explained it to some of the leadership guys like you know. J.J.’s whole message was ‘I just want to be proud, and right now I’m not’.”
