Baseball?

[hammer]

What I keep hearing is UW wants baseball and is it possible that wrestling maybe the sport that sees the end of its existence as a Badger program? All the 4 new school coming this year do not have wrestling and maybe one has interest and looking down the road with FSU and Clemson possibly coming in with out wrestling? Would Indiana and Maryland also drop. I think this situation is much bigger than we imagined!

[MNbadger]

No way baseball draws what wresting does.  That might not matter of course.

[hammer]

No way baseball draws what wresting does.  That might not matter of course.

I would question that with many more.home meets for baseball. You maybe right but when the future 4 to 6 teams all have baseball.

[MNbadger]

Just a quick check on Gophers.
Last year I saw for bb was 2021 15000 attendance.
Wrestling last year 17000.(just 6 dates). 
Fewer dates along with higher attendance numbers should bolster the retention od wrestling one would think, demonstrating more interest.

[bigoil]

Travel budget for baseball is insane for WI teams.

Really hard to play baseball in WI in March or April, these teams head south for quite a bit. I think UW definitely wants baseball back and has a plan that hopefully does NOT involve wrestling.

[dforsythe]

Or maybe Ben was in Madison to be named the new Women's wrestling coach at UW Madison. Adding a female sport might allow them to add a men's sport. 

[wrestlemania]

The one thing that's wrestling's saving grace is cost. It is a lot cheaper than baseball. Restoring baseball will cost, a lot. A lot for the scholarships, a lot for a place to place (which UW does not have) and a lot for the travel at the start of the season. Bringing back baseball alone will screw up the whole UW scholarship structure.

Now creating a separate UW women's wrestling team, along with baseball would equalize the scholarship deal, so perhaps it's not in the flights of fancy to think meeting with the Askrens to brainstorm about this or what can be done. Getting them back aboard in UW's good graces would certainly help the men's program but ultimately that can only be done if they repair that relationship or Bono departs, which doesn't look like is going to happen for now.

Reader to CMU was not an illogical rumor given Reader's from Michigan and it's a solid program to be your first head coaching job. But it doesn't look like it's going to happen.

[Gutwrench]

UW needs to jump on now regarding women's wrestling.  I think one of the things that helped the women's hockey program be so successful is that UW was one of the first in the country to have women's collegiate hockey.  UW had Mark Johnson as the coach, won several national titles early on, and became a national powerhouse which continues to this day.  UW could do the same with wrestling.  Be a pioneer UW!  Get an official women's wrestling team started, get a big name coach, establish yourself as a national power when there is less competition to do so, and ride that wave for decades.

[vsmf2010]

UW needs to jump on now regarding women's wrestling.  I think one of the things that helped the women's hockey program be so successful is that UW was one of the first in the country to have women's collegiate hockey.  UW had Mark Johnson as the coach, won several national titles early on, and became a national powerhouse which continues to this day.  UW could do the same with wrestling.  Be a pioneer UW!  Get an official women's wrestling team started, get a big name coach, establish yourself as a national power when there is less competition to do so, and ride that wave for decades.

+1

[Wisconsin Wrestling Fan]

Some UW baseball discussion on twitter was started by a fake Chris McIntosh account.