By a one-vote margin, the Wisconsin Senate approved a bill Tuesday to provide taxpayer funding for athletic facility debt service within the University of Wisconsin System and formalize rules around name, image and likeness.
As reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 11 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 Feb. 19 on a 95-1 vote, now goes to governor Tony Evers, who has not publicly weighed in on the measure, according to Journal Sentinel reporters John Steppe and Jessie Opoien.
Neither the Senate nor Assembly debated the bill before their votes.
Major provisions within the bill, per Steppe and Opoien:
- It would allocate $14.6 million for debt service and maintenance of athletic facilities at UW-Madison — the lone 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 would codify existing rules around athletes’ ability to profit off NIL opportunities. Athletes 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.
- It 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," Steppe and Opoien wrote. "He did not directly answer whether that would include cutting sports."
