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Sean Eichorst

Sean Eichorst

Director of Athletics for the University of Wisconsin–Madison Badgers since July 2026; previously athletic director at Nebraska, Miami, and UW-Whitewater, and deputy AD at Texas.

Sep 9, 2026

19:56
Is there that balance you strike evolving with it but staying true to what the core values of this university are all about? Is the big challenge moving ahead?
20:07
Yeah, you know, I think the...
20:10
The additional benefits that we're now able to offer student athletes, we're providing more benefit opportunities for them than we've ever provided before.
20:21
I think one of the great things about the house settlement is we've taken the restriction off of the scholarship limits.
20:30
We have roster limits, but we can scholarship up to those limits.
20:33
So again, this thing is all about providing opportunity through athletics and being able to provide financial aid associated with going to a place like Wisconsin.
20:47
I've said it before, I don't know if there's a greater sort of financial aid program other than the GI Bill than college athletics when you think about the history of this country.
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22:33
Mm-hmm.
8:32
Is that a fair way to look at it?
8:34
It's absolutely a fair way to look at it.
8:36
I mean, fundamentally, that's never changed.
8:38
The probability of professionalizing, those percentages haven't changed over the last couple of decades.
8:46
What's changed is the mobility piece of it.
8:48
And I think you've intuitively caught on that.
8:51
The mobile nature of it then is driving the retention and the tension on the dollars, right? If you look at the professional side, they don't have that freedom of movement in many cases.

27 MINS LATER

35:46
So I'm wondering how Beau and your time here with Beau and Greg at the time impacted you and Mark Johnson at kind of the same level, because they're the holdovers from trip one through the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
3:54
Sean, what have you learned from your time at Texas? Because I know you're going to do your press conference tomorrow, and when the announcement was kind of unofficially brought to us a couple days ago, people want to talk to you about – I'm sure going to ask you – about your some of your other spots but Texas a lot of success down at Texas and you were you know a big part of that was it for the fundraising what have you taken from your time at Texas that you know in this new era you're going to need to bring here to Wisconsin
4:26
well great place there's so many similarities between Texas and Wisconsin if you really look at it and then people It was all about the people.
4:37
When we got there in 2018, things weren't great.
4:41
Our structure wasn't great.
4:42
Our foundation wasn't great.
4:44
Some of our teams weren't performing at the level that we needed to perform, they needed to perform at.
4:49
And so we went to work.

18 MINS LATER

23:13
So how does the money component fit into the paradigm you just talked about with all the other important stuff?
29:47
Sean, what have you learned from your time at Texas? Because I know you're going to do your press conference tomorrow, and when the announcement was kind of unofficially brought to us a couple days ago, people want to talk to you about – I'm sure going to ask you – about your some of your other spots but Texas a lot of success down at Texas and you were you know a big part of that was it for the fundraising what have you taken from your time at Texas that you know in this new era you're going to need to bring here to Wisconsin
30:20
Well, great place.
30:21
There's so many similarities between Texas and Wisconsin, if you really look at it.
30:27
And then people.
30:29
It was all about the people.
30:30
When we got there in 2018, things weren't great.
30:34
Our structure wasn't great.

19 MINS LATER

49:07
So how does the money component fit into the paradigm you just talked about with all the other important stuff?
29:47
Sean, what have you learned from your time at Texas? Because I know you're going to do your press conference tomorrow, and when the announcement was kind of unofficially brought to us a couple days ago, people want to talk to you about – I'm sure going to ask you – about your some of your other spots but Texas a lot of success down at Texas and you were you know a big part of that was it for the fundraising what have you taken from your time at Texas that you know in this new era you're going to need to bring here to Wisconsin
30:20
Well, great place.
30:21
There's so many similarities between Texas and Wisconsin, if you really look at it.
30:27
And then people.
30:29
It was all about the people.
30:30
When we got there in 2018, things weren't great.
30:34
Our structure wasn't great.

19 MINS LATER

49:07
So how does the money component fit into the paradigm you just talked about with all the other important stuff?

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