Wisconsin went with a familiar name to run its athletic department, and now we know what it's costing the Badgers to bring him back.
Shawn Eichorst, who officially started on July 13, signed a five-year deal that begins at $1.6 million per year, with provisions for future increases and incentives built in. The full contract is still working its way through an open records request, so the specifics on those bumps and bonuses aren't public yet, but the starting number tells you plenty about where Wisconsin values the position.
The deal also includes a $50k annual raise, relocation stipend, temporary housing assistance, and a country club membership according to reports.
That $1.6 million figure is a raise over what the school was paying before. Chris McIntosh, who stepped down about two and a half months ago to take a newly created role as the Big Ten's deputy commissioner for strategy, was making $1.5 million in total for the 2025-26 school year. That broke down to a $1 million base salary and another $500,000 through a separate compensation agreement. So Eichorst comes in at $100,000 more than his predecessor was pulling, right out of the gate.
Marcus Sedberry, the deputy AD and chief operating officer, held things together as interim AD while the search played out.
For anyone who has followed Eichorst's career, this is a homecoming in every sense. He grew up in Lone Rock, Wisconsin, played football at UW-Whitewater where he was a team captain and an All-Conference pick in 1990, and later earned his law degree from Marquette. Before he ever ran his own department, he was Wisconsin's deputy AD and COO under Barry Alvarez, learning the operation from the inside.
His resume as an AD runs through some big rooms. He took over at Miami in 2011 and made the hire that brought Jim Larranaga to Coral Gables. He left for Nebraska in 2012 and ran the Huskers' department from 2013 to 2017, a tenure that included hiring Mike Riley and moving on from Bo Pelini before his own run in Lincoln ended in a firing in 2017. Since 2018 he had been the deputy AD and COO at Texas, working inside one of the sport's biggest and best-funded operations during the Longhorns' move to the SEC and their recent playoff runs.
Now he inherits a Wisconsin program navigating the same revenue-sharing math and roster economics everyone in college athletics is trying to solve, and he walks in with one of the more pressing football questions in the Big Ten sitting on his desk.
Luke Fickell is entering a critical year in Madison. The Badgers went 4-8 (2-7) in 2025, the worst mark of his tenure, with home shutouts against Iowa and Ohio State inside a six-game losing streak. The schedule sets up softer this fall and Wisconsin brought in more than 30 newcomers through the portal, so the pieces are there for a bounce back. But the coach who ultimately decides Fickell's future is the one who just took the job, and that makes this season's results Eichorst's problem as much as anyone's.
The price to get him was a modest raise over the last guy. Whether that turns out to be a bargain will depend on what he does with the department from here.
Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.