The University of Wisconsin–Madison sports teams participate in the NCAA's Division I-A. With the exception of lightweight Wisconsin Badgers Crew, the university's athletic programs compete in the Big Ten Conference. The women's hockey program competes in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA), while the  men's and women's crew programs compete in the Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges and Eastern Association of Women's Rowing Colleges, respectively. The school's fight song is On, Wisconsin!. The school's mascot is Buckingham U. Badger, commonly referred to as "Bucky Badger". The athletic director is Barry Alvarez.

2005–2006 marked the first time in school history that four Badger teams won national championships in the same academic year.In the fall, the men's cross country team won its fourth national championship. The winter season was highlighted by the men's and women's ice hockey teams both winning national titles. The year was capped off in the spring with the women's lightweight crew taking its third straight Intercollegiate Rowing Association national crown. In 2008, both men's and women's crew teams claimed national titles.

Football

The Badgers play college football at Camp Randall Stadium. The head coach is Gary Andersen. Before the fourth quarter of every game at Camp Randall, the crowd jumps around to House of Pain's song "Jump Around". After every game, the University of Wisconsin Marching Band plays popular songs during the Fifth Quarter. The Badgers won three Rose Bowl Championships under Alvarez in 1994, 1999, and 2000. In 2006, Bielema led the Badgers to a school record 11-win regular season and to 12 overall wins, defeating Arkansas in the Capital One Bowl. The Badgers lost to TCU in the 2011 Rose Bowl Championship on January 1, 2011. In the 2011 season, the Badgers defended the B1G championship title to go to the 2012 Rose Bowl Championship. The Badgers lost to Oregon 45–38 in the highest-scoring Rose Bowl of all time.

Men's basketball

The Badgers have made 14 consecutive appearances at the NCAA Tournament, with Final Four visits in 2000 and 2014, an Elite Eight appearance in 2005, and a Sweet Sixteen appearance in 2011.Badgers' head coach Bo Ryan has coached the team since 2001. The Badgers play at the Kohl Center, where the student fans are known as the Grateful Red. In the 2006–2007 season, the Badgers attained their highest AP ranking in school history (#1 Feb. 19–25), garnering 35 first-place votes.The Badgers' earned their only NCAA National Championship in 1941.

Women's basketball

The women's basketball team plays at the Kohl Center. The 2006–2007 season was a record-setting year, with the Badgers recording 23 wins and becoming the WNIT runners-up.

Ice hockey

Badger ice hockey first became a men's varsity sport in 1922. Although dropped after the 1934–35 season, it again became a varsity sport in the 1963–64 season. The men's team played in the Dane County Coliseum until moving to the Kohl Center (capacity 15,359) in the fall of 1998. The first ice hockey game played at the Kohl was the Hall of Fame game against the University of Notre Dame. From 1999 to 2012 the men's team led the nation in college hockey attendance, setting an NCAA attendance record (averaging 15,048) during the 2009–10 season, which surpassed their previous record set in 2006–07.

Bob Johnson, nicknamed "Badger Bob" by fans, took over the reins in 1966. Johnson coached the Badger men to three national championships in 1973, 1977 and 1981. Jeff Sauer coached the Badger men to two more titles in 1983 and 1990. Mike Eaves, member of the 1977 NCAA title team, coached the Badger men's team to its sixth national championship in 2006. The six Badger titles rank 4th in NCAA men's ice hockey history. Eaves' 2010 squad advanced to the national championship game during the Badgers' 11th appearance in the men's Frozen Four before bowing to Boston College.

The school's strong ice hockey tradition gained another dimension with the addition of a women's team that began play in the 1999–2000 season. Coached by Mark Johnson, son of "Badger Bob" and another member of the men's 1977 title team, the Badger women won their first NCAA championship on March 26, 2006. The dual 2006 titles marked the first time that both the men's and women's Division I NCAA hockey titles were won by the same school in the same year. The women's team repeated as national champions in 2007 with a victory over the University of Minnesota-Duluth and in 2009 with a victory over Mercyhurst. The team set the NCAA women's hockey attendance record on February 15, 2014 in a game against Minnesota.

Media

Student publications

UW–Madison is the only university in the country with two daily student newspapers:The Daily Cardinal, founded in 1892 and The Badger Herald, founded in 1969. The Onion was founded in 1988 by two UW–Madison juniors, and was published in Madison before moving to New York City in 2001. It is also the home of The Madison Misnomer, an undergraduate comedy newspaper, founded in 2007.

UW–Madison is also home to one of only two nationally distributed undergraduate international studies journals in the country. The Journal of Undergraduate International Studies (JUIS) is a competitive publication that features peer-reviewed academic articles. It was founded in 2003 by David Coddon with the support of the University of Wisconsin–Madison Leadership Trust.

Campus radio

The University of Wisconsin–Madison campus radio station is WSUM 91.7 FM, "The Snake on the Lake". Historically, UW–Madison has been home to a collection of student run radio stations, a number of which stopped broadcasting after run-ins with the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The current radio station, WSUM, began in 1997 in a webcast only format because of the prolonged battle to get an FCC license and construct a tower. This lasted five years until February 22, 2002, when the station started broadcasting over FM airwaves at 91.7 from its tower in Montrose, Wisconsin. The radio station currently has around 200 volunteer DJs and 8 paid managers. All UW–Madison students, as well as a limited number of community members, are eligible to participate in running the station. WSUM remains entirely free format, which means that the on-air personnel can showcase a large variety of music and talk programming at their discretion with few limitations. WSUM has garnered many awards from the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association for their news, play-by-play broadcasts of Badger athletic events, and unique public service announcements.

"Party school" image

In 2010 Wisconsin was named the number three "party school" by Playboy magazine,and number 12 by The Princeton Review.UW–Madison has long held a reputation for academics, political activism, and drinking; the last of these can be understood in the context of the state's traditionally high level of alcohol consumption in general.

MTV's College Life

On April 13, 2009, MTV premiered the reality series College Life about the day-to-day lives of eight UW–Madison freshmen.The show was created by UW–Madison alumnus David Wexler. According to MTV, the students did the filming for the series, but not the editing. During production, the university pulled its support of the show. Subsequently, a disclaimer was aired at the beginning of each episode stating that UW–Madison does not endorse the program. Eight episodes aired as of February 22, 2010.