The University of Wisconsin Athletic Department is in good financial shape, but if it's to fund an ambitious list of capital projects and stay nationally competitive, it needs to lose weight.

UW is getting almost maximum income from its three go-to sports: football is sold out at Camp Randall Stadium, while men's basketball is sold out and men's hockey is averaging an NCAA-best 13,862 at the Kohl Center.

Other revenue streams — such as the Badger Fund and the Big Ten Network — are being used in part to pay $10 million in annual debt service for the recent renovation of Camp Randall and the 10-year-old Kohl Center.

To avoid the obvious option — annual ticket price hikes — UW Athletic Department officials have been brainstorming for weeks about how to contain costs. Some of those options will come to life today when the finance committee of the UW Athletic Board goes over a draft of the 2008-09 budget.

"This is not a money pit," UW athletic director Barry Alvarez said. "If we're going to follow through on our master plan, we have to be able to tighten our belts."

UW Athletics has an operating budget of just less than $75 million for 2007-08, as well as a reserve of approximately $30 million.

The 2008-09 budget will no doubt move closer to $80 million. In addition, the first in a series of several capital projects are showing up on the horizon.

"We're still trying to figure out what we can do," said John Jentz, the UW associate athletic director for finance.

UW wants to build a new competition and practice rink for the men's and women's hockey teams adjacent to the Kohl Center.

Also in the works is an athletic performance facility — which would house academic services, sports medicine and strength and conditioning — located behind Camp Randall.

The combined price tag on those two projects likely will be in the neighborhood of $100 million.

"I've told Barry — and Pat (Richter) before him — that we expected them to be as careful with their money as we have to be with the state money and tuition," UW chancellor John Wiley said. "We don't want to see unnecessary expenditures, waste, bloat. They're expected to run a tight ship."

Alvarez told members of the UW Athletic Board last week that one of the goals for the new budget is not to raise ticket prices.

He later added that there is nothing on the table whereby the various donation levels to the Badger Fund will be increased.

"We're sensitive to our fan base," Alvarez said. "I hear the criticism of the little guys being squeezed out and we're sensitive to that. We have been sensitive to that, yet we have to compete.

"Costs keep rising and you still have to find ways to pay for things. We have to balance the budget."