Report: Wisconsin Badgers athletic director landed bigger bonus than all but one coach

Only one Wisconsin Badgers coach earned a bigger bonus than athletic director Chris McIntosh last year, and it's not the coach you might expect.

Wisconsin s new head football coach Luke Fickell, right, is shown with athletic director Chris McIntosh at a news conference November 28, 2022 at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison. He was previously head coach for six seasons at Cincinnati. | Mark Hoffman / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK

With one exception, athletic director Chris McIntosh took home more bonus money than any Wisconsin Badgers coach during the 2024-2025 fiscal year.

According to the Wisconsin State Journal, McIntosh earned a bonus which exceeded $76,000 in what was the initial year of a renegotiated contract. His deal includes compensation bonuses tied to student-athletes performance in the classroom and coaching bonuses for what occurred on the field.

Wisconsin athletic director Chris McIntosh had performance incentives added to his contract in a 2024 update. Only one Badgers coach earned more of a bonus last season than McIntosh did.https://t.co/snnjFoJ0d3

— Todd Milewski (@ToddMilewski) August 13, 2025

In his contract, he gets a $50,000 bonus if the NCAA Graduation Success Rate (GSR) at Wisconsin is 93% or higher.

For the 2023-24 school year, the Badgers had a GSR of 94 percent. The figure was released in November, after renegotiation, so he qualified for the $50,000 bonus.

The remaining difference of over $25,000 comes from the second tier of the bonuses set forth in his enumerated contract. He earns 7.5 percent of all total bonus compensation earned by Badgers coaches. Nine of the 18 coaches qualified for bonuses totaling $350,000.

McIntosh received a base salary of $1.45 million last year. His contract has an escalator provision, which raises his salary to $1.5 million for year two of his five-year deal.

Women's hockey coach Mark Johnson was the only coach to earn a larger bonus than McIntosh. He earned a 40 percent bonus worth over $165,000 for winning the NCAA championship, conference title and National Coach of the Year honors.

After Johnson, the next highest bonus went to volleyball coach Kelly Sheffield, whose team made the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament. He earned a bonus of over $50,000.

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