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Barstool Big Cat recruiting billionaire Wisconsin Badgers alum to help fund football program

The University of Wisconsin has some wealthy and famous alumni, and Dan Katz is using his platform to try and recruit a big spender to help fund the Badgers football program.
Lorin Cox|
Barstool Sports' Dan "Big Cat" Katz is an alumnus of the University of Wisconsin
Barstool Sports' Dan "Big Cat" Katz is an alumnus of the University of Wisconsin | Eric Rueb / The Providence Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK

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Wisconsin Badgers

The current college football landscape is all about who can raise the most money.

The Wisconsin Badgers aren't among the big spenders in the sport, but one famous alumnus is looking to change that.

Barstool Sports personality Dan Katz, who is known by the nickname "Big Cat," graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 2007.

Some of his followers want to see him put more money into the football program, but he has his eyes on an even bigger financial target.

During his FS1 show "Wake Up Barstool," he made a public plea to an even wealthier Wisconsin graduate.

"We need more money, and people obviously blame me because they wildly overrate how much money I have," Katz said. "I did find, the guy who invented Temu, Colin Huang, he got his master's from Wisconsin, so I'm trying to get in contact with him."

More specifically, Huang is the founder and former CEO of the e-commerce company Pinduoduo (PDD), which owns the online marketplace company Temu.

He got his master's degree in computer science from UW-Madison in 2004 and started his career at Google before becoming a self-made billionaire.

"Colin Huang, if you’re listening, we should talk," Katz said. "He has like $50 billion. He probably was in Madison for like 12 months and thought it was too cold and hated it and went back to China, but... let's talk!"

Big Cat exaggerated Huang's wealth slightly. The most recent estimate from Forbes has the Chinese business mogel valued at $43 billion, which makes him the 37th most wealthy person in the world.

If someone with as much money as him invested into the football program, it would obviously be a game-changer for recruiting and NIL funding.

It's highly unlikely that Katz will be able to pull off the miracle, but it's a valiant fundraising effort at a time when the athletic department is looking for ways to turn things around.

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Lorin Cox
LORIN COX

Lorin Cox is the managing editor of Wisconsin Badgers on SI. He has been covering Badgers sports since 2014, when he was an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin. He previously wrote for the Wisconsin State Journal, NBC Sports Chicago and USA Today Sports Media Group, and he is a former analyst for Pro Football Focus.

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