Chris McIntosh is set to resign immediately as Wisconsin’s athletic director and join the Big Ten in a newly created deputy commissioner for strategy role, a move that will put him directly under Commissioner Tony Petitti. Wisconsin Deputy AD and COO Marcus Sedberry is likely to serve as interim athletic director.
McIntosh made the move just days after Wisconsin’s men’s hockey team lost 2-1 to Denver in Saturday night’s national title game, with the administrator in Las Vegas for the Frozen Four over the weekend before flying back to Madison on Sunday. In a statement, he called it an honor to lead Wisconsin for the last five years and said the shift to the Big Ten was an “incredible honor” and “incredible opportunity,” adding that his new job will focus on shaping the league’s broad strategy.
His departure closes a five-year run as Wisconsin’s top athletic administrator, a post he took over in 2021 after rising through the department. McIntosh first moved into an administrative role under Barry Alvarez in 2014, long after he was selected in the first round of the 2000 NFL Draft by the Seahawks. During his tenure, Wisconsin completed a 10-year, $104.5 million renewal with Under Armour, reached an agreement with UW Health to make it the presenting sponsor of Wisconsin women’s sports, and added a new NIL initiative through its multimedia rights deal with Learfield.
The exit also lands at a fragile moment for the program. McIntosh gave Luke Fickell a public vote of confidence in October amid Fickell’s second consecutive losing season, while saying Wisconsin would need to commit more resources to compete in the NIL era. Fickell would have been owed more than $25 million if he had been fired last year, according to, a figure that underscored how costly a change would have been.
McIntosh’s move comes amid a wider leadership vacuum in Wisconsin’s university ecosystem, including the firing of Jay Rothman last week. For Wisconsin, the immediate question is how Sedberry steadies the athletic department while the school absorbs another high-profile departure; for the Big Ten, McIntosh arrives as the league tries to define its next strategic move in a fast-changing college sports landscape.
