University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Thursday, October 30, 2025
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FUERBRINGER IN FOCUS
Sophomore Henry Mouw built a TikTok following by sharing bold, vintage-inspired outfits
Wisconsin’s All-American setter reflected on family, gratitude and finding joy on and off the volleyball court
+ LIFE & STYLE, PAGE 6
+ SPORTS, PAGE 8
UW Housing to limit, charge $100 for overnight guests during Halloweekend The decision is motivated by safety concerns. By Zoey Jiang STAFF WRITER
The University of WisconsinMadison housing announced students who wish to have guests in dorms over the weekend will be required to register them and pay $100, a new Halloween weekend policy for guests. Housing said the decision was motivat-
ed by safety issues around Halloweekend in past years. “Our goal is to maintain your safety and that of our community, and years of experience have indicated that Halloween weekend requires extra steps,” said Beth Miller, an assistant director of resident life in an email sent to all residents. Residence halls will be locked at all times throughout the weekend, and all stu-
dents must present Wiscards at check-in stations in buildings. Students who are not residents of a certain hall — or otherwise registered as a guest — will be denied entry. Miller said additional housing staff will be present at dorm entrances for mediation. Guests — defined by housing as someone who is not enrolled at UW-Madison and has no other housing
Football losses hurt state economy, report finds
options in Dane County — need to be registered on the UW Housing Portal. Typically, two overnight guests are permitted in a residence hall. In response to safety concerns on campus, UW-Madison works closely with the UW Madison Police and the Wisconsin Fire department to facilitate supervision on campus for Halloweekend.
Q&A: Health dept. guide to battling illness this winter By Emma Kelly STAFF WRITER
JAKE PIPER/THE DAILY CARDINAL
By Michael Reilly STAFF WRITER
The 2025 Badgers are on track to have the program’s worst record since 1990 and risk finishing winless in Big Ten play — something they haven’t done in 35 years. While bad football is painful to Badger fans, it may also hurt the state economy, experts say. According to a report published by the Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy (CROWE), Badger football’s poor performance could diminish economic activity in Madison by $160 million and the state by $280 million annually. These potential losses are driven by lower attendance, reduced gameday spending and decreased tourism. For Badger fans, the impact of poor football is both personal and financial. Ian, a season ticket holder from Madison, told The Daily Cardinal he decided not to renew season tickets after seeing a 37-0 homecoming loss to the Iowa Hawkeyes. “We couldn’t justify spending $1,200+ per year to watch the Badgers get blown out by every Big Ten opponent,” Ian said. Ian will join the growing number of fans not renewing their season tickets. The CROWE report found a significant drop in sales, from 42,197 in 2024 — when the Badgers missed their first bowl game in 23 years — to 38,082 in 2025. With a historically bad 2025 football campaign, that number is primed to drop even further.
While season ticket sales are just one revenue source for the athletic department, poor football drives fans away from Madison and the state as a whole, creating an economic ripple effect. The CROWE report concluded that success in both football and in the economy requires strategic investments from the athletic department that “target physical capital (training facilities) and human capital (players, coaches and staff), including enhanced recruiting budgets and competitive NIL spending and compensation for players and coaches.” After the Badgers’ 34-0 loss to Ohio State, Athletics Director Chris McIntosh promised more financial support for football in a public letter to fans, saying his department “must provide our coaches the tools necessary to succeed.” McIntosh specifically highlighted “more Athletics-funded investments in infrastructure, staffing and most importantly, student-athlete recruiting and retention.” He said a “new era of college athletics” makes these investments necessary, but warned fans the impacts may not be immediate. For Doug McLeod, chair of the UW Athletic Board, those investments are easier said than done. “NIL [name, image and likeness] has fundamentally changed how athletics operate,” McLeod told the Cardinal. “Every single school is grappling with the same kind of
issues right now.” Still, Wisconsin remains behind its Big Ten competitors in NIL funding. According to the report, the Badgers reported $8.98 million in collective NIL funding last year — more than $10 million less than the conference’s top spender, Ohio State. The importance of NIL spending is evident in the new era of college football. The conference’s top four spenders — Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and Indiana — have all either won a national championship or earned a playoff spot in the last two seasons. McLeod stressed that Wisconsin’s athletic funding operates differently than many of its competitors. “The money you pay for tuition often goes to athletics at other schools,” he said. “We don’t do that here, and I think we should all be pretty proud of that.” Unlike many of its peers in the Big Ten, UW does not directly allocate student tuition to the athletic department. Instead, the athletic department is mainly funded through self-generated revenue and segregated university fees — fees that students pay separate from tuition. McLeod emphasized that the current situation has no easy answers. “People have to be patient and understand how complicated the situation is. Programs take time to build,” he said.
Public Health Madison & Dane County (PHMDC), a county health department responsible for managing the public health of over 60 cities and more than 575,000 people, said the region is projected to reach peak hospitalizations as respiratory diseases pick up in the winter due to COVID19, influenza, and RSV. When the Cardinal last spoke with PHMDC in 2023, they had recently launched their respiratory illness dashboard, which tracks the number of COVID, influenza and RSV infections across the county. PHMDC Communications Director Morgan Finke discussed causes and solutions for respiratory illnesses in a conversation with the Cardinal on Oct. 23. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. What are PHMDC’s current recommendations for preventing respiratory illnesses in Dane County? Our advice for any respiratory illness at this point is pretty much the same, whether it’s flu, COVID or anything else of that nature. These illnesses often spread in the same way and often have similar symptoms. Stay home if you have symptoms like fever, cough, runny nose and sore throat. When you start to feel better, it means those symptoms are improving, and when you’ve been free of fever for 24 hours, that’s when you know you can go without the help of medication and resume regular activities. For the next five days, you may still be contagious to those around you. So wear a well-fitting mask when you’re close to others, maintain physical distance as much as possible and limit your interaction with folks who have an increased risk of getting seriously sick due to flu or COVID.
+ Q&A page 4
“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”