Heh. I became a Badger fan in the '80's, BKB (Before King Barry). I remember being able to get a sweatshirt outside of the stadium for $3. T-shirts were $2. If you stood outside the stadium before the game, it was very likely you could get a ticket for somewhere between $0 and $5, depending on the opponent.
If it was Iowa, they were higher, and there would be 25-30K Iowa fans inside.
Needless to say, the past 25+ years have been really fun.
Student tickets were $6/game in 1992 and 1993. After "we" won the Rose Bowl they *gasp* doubled the cost, to $12/game.
1993 was such a great time to be a student and football fan at Wisconsin.
I wasn't a Badger fan before I became interested in going there as a student in about 1990. At that point, the hockey team was the big athletic draw. But I had been a fan of plenty of consistently mediocre or bad sports teams, including Stanford football and basketball, the San Francisco Giants, the Golden State Warriors, and the Vancouver Canucks--all of whom had their moments of potential glory, but who couldn't seal the deal and weren't consistently good.
There was a stretch when my kids were just starting to pay attention to sports with me that I couldn't believe how spoiled they were. From 2010 to 2015, the Giants won three World Series, the Badgers played in three Rose Bowls, Notre Dame played for the national title, The Badgers men's basketball was in consecutive Final Fours, the local team, the 49ers, played in three straight conference championships and a Super Bowl, my NFL team, the Packers, won a Super Bowl, and the Golden State Warriors were clearly on an upward trend, which has subsequently resulted in three championships in four years.
It's hard to teach sports perspective to kids who get that. To this day they are disappointed that the Giants and the Badgers aren't routinely the best of the best (they are kind of used to Notre Dame not being quite where SFIrish wants them). :-)
Yeah, it's been a good 25 years to be a Badger.