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The Wisconsin Badgers face challenges in competing in the NIL landscape as budgets grow significantly. Head coach Greg Gard is assessing the program's resources in relation to other college basketball teams.
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PORTLAND, OREGON - MARCH 19: Nick Boyd #2 of the Wisconsin Badgers drives against Scotty Washington #12 of the High Point Panthers during the second half in the first round of the 2026 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at Moda Center on March 19, 2026 in Portland, Oregon. (Photo by Soobum Im/Getty Images) | Getty Images
As the college basketball world continues to evolve, there’s been one major question surrounding the Wisconsin Badgers: Are they competitive enough in NIL?
Head coach Greg Gard and his staff have done a great job of raising resources, but NIL budgets across the country are getting substantially bigger, raising the prices of the market. With a significant investment from the Athletic Department in the football program this offseason, there have been questions about how competitive the basketball program is currently in the NIL space.
Does Gard believe Wisconsin has enough resources to be be competitive currently?
“You never have enough resources,” Gard said. “It’s like, hey, would you like to get paid more in your job, right? Do you have the resources you want to go to travel everywhere to cover us? No. Well, you don’t. But we’ve been able to stay competitive. Our resources have gone up. I want to make sure that’s clear.
“[The stigma out there is], well, Wisconsin has no resources. No, we do, we do. But guess what? The market has also climbed and the competition and it’s continued. They haven’t stopped adding to their resources, and we haven’t stopped adding to our resources. So we’ve had very generous people.”
Earlier this offseason, Gard acknowledged that the Badgers weren’t in the top half of NIL spending in the Big Ten this past season, and probably wouldn’t be again in 2026-27 despite being one of the more successful programs in the conference over the past few years.
That means he and his staff have needed to maneuver through the transfer portal to find the best fits within the team’s budget.
The Wisconsin Badgers' NIL budget is under scrutiny as other programs are increasing their budgets significantly.
Head coach Greg Gard is actively involved in evaluating and raising resources for the Badgers' competitiveness in the NIL space.
The Athletic Department has made significant investments in the football program, prompting questions about the basketball program's NIL competitiveness.
Concerns about the Badgers' competitiveness in NIL are particularly relevant as they prepare for the 2026 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.
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“We’ve had some very thoughtful insight into how to navigate this world,” Gard said. “My staff has done an unbelievable job. I got the best staff in the country in terms of navigating this world, from my GM Marc [VandeWettering] and how he navigates and negotiates with agents, to how [Joe] Krabbenhoft, [Lance] Randall, [Greg] Stiemsma, [Brad] Davidson, Sharif [Chambliss] all sit down and put their minds together to create a team.
“I mean, sitting in those and listening and firing questions at those guys because they’ve been in the pro world, I think that gives them a huge advantage. And I noticed that and why I shifted kind of gears with the construction of a staff or roles within a staff, because we have to operate in that annual team construction each year. Because you are starting over. You hope not to have to start too much over, right? I don’t want to have to replace 15 guys through the portal. You wouldn’t see me here tonight probably if that was the case. But you have to have people around you that understand it.”
The Badgers should hopefully get to a point where they can be in that upper tier in the Big Ten when it comes to NIL resources. But, for now, the staff has done a great job raising money and identifying players that fit within their constraints to put a good product on the court.