With the cardinal and white of Wisconsin playing the scarlet and cream of Nebraska Saturday, this news comes from the Wisconsin State Journal:

The University of Wisconsin athletic department appears poised to enter into a sponsorship agreement with Under Armour after 15 years with Adidas. …

According to the resolution, UW would receive an annual cash contribution of $4 million from Maryland-based Under Armour on top of $3.3 million in product for the school’s 23 sports programs during the first year of the deal. During the Badgers’ contract with Adidas, they received somewhere between $750,000-$800,000 each year in cash compensation.

Product contributions following the first year of the Under Armour deal would be worth between $2.45 million and $3.05 million annually. Adidas provided $1.375 million in product this season.

Schools currently sponsored by Under Armour include Maryland, Auburn, Boston College, Northwestern, Notre Dame and South Carolina.

UW’s contract with Adidas expires on June 30, 2016.

Athletic director Barry Alvarez told the State Journal in April that he met with Under Armour representatives when the UW men’s basketball team played at Maryland in late February.

Alvarez said in April that Under Armour wouldn’t be able to cover all of UW’s footwear needs right away — specifically mentioning volleyball and track and field — but various shoe lines are being developed.

“They’ll allow you to purchase other shoes,” Alvarez said in April. He said Under Armour would prefer Adidas and Nike not be used as replacements, “but I think there would be some flexibility if there was a big drop-off on quality. We’ll figure that out if we get there.”

The contract also states that “Under Armour would acknowledge its plan of action with respect to human rights issues and allow UW access to archives and contemporary inspection and monitoring reports for all facilities producing goods for the university.”

This is obviously a business deal (and a rather lucrative one for UW, it seems), not an aesthetics deal. Under Armour’s client schools have football uniforms ranging from traditional (Auburn and Notre Dame except for their many special games) to, well, not (Maryland). So to expect UW to change its look, which it has had ever since the year after Alvarez’s first year (when the motion W appeared), is unlikely.

As I’ve written here before, UW doesn’t wear the right color uniforms, because the university’s colors are supposed to be cardinal and white, not bright red and white. (For those counting, the last three schools added to what was the Big T1e1n, Nebraska, Maryland and Rutgers, all are red, which makes the 14-team Big Ten half red and half everything else.)

The Big T1e4n’s red color spectrum, from light to dark, should be:

Red matching the state flag: Maryland (and gold, black and white).
Scarlet: Ohio State (and gray), Nebraska (and cream), Rutgers.
Cardinal: Wisconsin (and white).
Crimson: Indiana (and cream).
Maroon: Minnesota (and gold).
Purple: Northwestern (and white), which I just added to show that maroon and purple are not the same color.

(Wisconsin is not alone in cardinal confusion. The local high school is supposed to have cardinal uniforms, but the football uniforms are more maroon than cardinal or Badger red. The local team also has black alternate jerseys, which I call “midnight red” on the air.)

Certainly coach Paul Chryst has bigger things to deal with than football uniforms (for instance, finding better running backs and offensive linemen since his predecessor couldn’t find either), but when he has a minute, he should talk to his boss about …

These uniforms (1) are the correct color red, (2) are neater than the awkward-looking stripes of the current uniforms while not being a significant departure from the current uniforms, (3) use the current UW-approved numbers and (4) harken to the 1960 and 1963 Rose Bowl uniforms. Wear the red pants on the road, and your fat players won’t look like Michelin Men.

The red helmets coach Gary Andersen introduced appear to have gone nowhere with the fans. Something like these might be better for at least an alternative helmet, though there is far too much black in them.