Wisconsin AD Chris McIntosh taking new senior position at Big Ten office
Wisconsin AD Chris McIntosh is slated to resign from his position instantly and be a part of the Big Ten as its newly created deputy commissioner for technique, Sports Business Journal has realized. McIntosh will report on to Commissioner Tony Petittiwhereas his function will concentrate on shaping the broad technique of the league.
Wisconsin Deputy AD/COO Marcus Sedberry is prone to be named interim AD, sources instructed SBJ, though speedy succession plans are fluid.
McIntosh was in Las Vegas over the weekend for UW males’s hockey’s Frozen Four look and flew again to Madison on Sunday. The Badgers lost 2-1 to Denver in the national title game on Saturday evening.
“To be able to work for the University of Wisconsin and certainly for the last five years as athletic director, to be able to pour everything I had into transitioning Wisconsin into a changing world, it’s just been an honor,” McIntosh stated when reached by SBJ. “I’ve said along the way that the best thing about Wisconsin is the people. I’ve been surrounded by the best people and people who care about, first and foremost, our student athletes and about the university. They’ve just given everything to making Wisconsin the best it can be.
“On one hand it’s totally troublesome for me to transition away from a spot that is so necessary to me. On the opposite hand, it is an unimaginable honor and an unimaginable alternative to have the ability to transition to a position at the Big Ten and to work for an unimaginable chief like Commissioner Petitti and alongside some top-tier, very succesful members of the Big Ten as we navigate a dynamic interval for faculty athletics.”
A former standout football player and All-American at UW, McIntosh was selected in the first round of the 2000 NFL Draft by the Seahawks. After neck injuries derailed his pro football career, he worked in the private sector around various start-up ventures. McIntosh eventually moved into an administrative role under then-AD Barry Alvarez in 2014, working his way up to Deputy AD. He took over for Alvarez in the Badgers’ top administrative role in 2021.
While football has had its struggles under coach Luke Fickell In recent years, McIntosh and his senior leadership team have overseen a number of successful initiatives on the business side of the athletic department. Those efforts include a recent 10-year, $104.5 million renewal with Under Armoran settlement with UW Health making it the presenting sponsor of Wisconsin women’s sports and a new NIL initiative by means of its multimedia rights agreement with Learfield.
“Personally, there’s excitement to play a role in preserving the best of what college athletics means to student athletes,” McIntosh said. “Change like this can be incredibly difficult and the love I have for the University of Wisconsin, it’s a time in which I think we all need to do everything we can to ensure that college athletics is put in the best position in the Big “Here.”
The UW football program will likely be a major point of focus for the next athletic director. McIntosh gave Fickell a vote of confidence in October amid his second consecutive losing season, along with promising more resources to compete in the increasingly costly NIL era. Fickell would’ve been owed greater than $25 million had he been fired final 12 months, per ESPN.
The transfer additionally comes within the midst of a management vacuum inside Wisconsin’s broader college ecosystem. System president Jay Rothman was fired final week under turbulent circumstanceswhereas UW Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin was elected because the new president of Columbia Univ. in January.
