Alumni contribute to the Milwaukee Brewers’ pennant-winning season
It’s true: a UW–Madison degree can get you to the World Series.
Granted, no UW grads are currently suiting up for the pennant-winning Milwaukee Brewers. But Badgers fill key slots throughout the Brewers organization, including top business executives, marketers, software engineers, videographers, finance managers and analytics specialists. They all played their part in the team’s unlikely journey to the fall classic for the first time since 1982. The series begins on October 23 against the Tampa Bay Rays — a red-letter day for Wisconsin.
How does a UW student go from a degree in journalism, child development or political science to a Major League Baseball job? Here’s a sampling of stories from the Brewers’ behind-the-scenes heroes.
Creative content
All season, fans have marveled over the chemistry of a team that earned baseball’s best record despite its underdog status. According to Emily Bremer, the Brewers’ senior director of marketing, that special magic characterizes the whole organization.
“There’s so much camaraderie with both the front office and the team on the field,” says Bremer, who oversees the digital operation, social media and copywriting. “It’s a special group of people, and our team is churning at a level we never have before. It feels like the stars have aligned after many years of laying the groundwork.”
The players have made history in almost every game they’ve played in the last five weeks. To be on the inside when all that’s happening — it’s just unmatched.
Emily Bremer, Brewers’ senior director of marketing
Bremer’s superpower is engaging the Brewers’ growing national fan base with creative content on every conceivable platform: email, social media, the team website, text messages, TV, radio, an app, billboards and ballpark signage. The pace is relentless, as the marketing campaign for one game gives way to the marketing campaign for the next day’s game, and on and on throughout the long season.
Bremer’s number-one thrill? Overseeing videos and other marketing content for the Brewers’ biggest stage — American Family Field — and then watching fans enjoy them in person.
“We sit and watch it with everyone else, and it’s just amazing. How often do you get to hear real-time reactions to something you’ve created?”
Bremer grew up in the Madison area and had eyes for only one college. “The feeling of being on the UW campus is something that you don’t get anywhere else,” she says.
She focused on child development at UW’s School of Human Ecology for her 2011 undergrad degree, then earned an MBA from the Wisconsin School of Business in 2019. A stint with the UW cycling club sparked an interest in sports marketing and led to a position with Trek Bicycle in Waterloo, Wisconsin. After gaining more experience on the East Coast, Bremer migrated back to Wisconsin for the Brewers job in 2024 — just in time to start the journey toward this extraordinary season.
“The players have made history in almost every game they’ve played in the last five weeks,” she says. “To be on the inside when all that’s happening — it’s just unmatched.”
The ultimate success
Rick Schlesinger is the Brewers’ president of business operations. And as he acknowledges, “It’s not a normal business.”
For this organization, the mission statement is to win the World Series. Obviously, that’s not a goal you’re going to be able meet every year.
“So much depends on the health and success of young baseball players,” Schlesinger says. “They’re human beings, and injuries or bad luck or an off season can negatively impact your team.”
UW taught me to be a critical thinker. I learned how to assess different structures and recognize that, while there’s only one set of facts, there are many interpretations regarding events and their significance.
Rick Schlesinger, Brewers’ president of business operations
But in 2026, the goal is finally within Schlesinger’s grasp. It’s the payoff for all the effort he’s put into ticketing, sponsorships, broadcasting, public relations, stadium operations, financial analysis and the many other parts of his demanding job.
“You work very hard for moments like this, and to be in the World Series is magical,” he says. “We’re making so many people happy, getting so many text messages and emails and letters and calls from fans who are just ecstatic. It does motivate you to do the best in your job and achieve the ultimate success.”
Schlesinger had one important credential for his current position: He grew up in Milwaukee as a Brewers fanatic. He knew he wanted to attend UW–Madison from an early age, and he considers his majors in history and political science as perfect preparation for a career in business.
“It taught me to be a critical thinker,” he says. “I learned how to assess different structures and recognize that, while there’s only one set of facts, there are many interpretations regarding events and their significance.”
After graduating in 1983, Schlesinger attended Harvard Law School and then worked for pro sports franchises in California before getting back to where he always wanted to be. In 2003, he started work with his beloved Brewers and now has an office above the idyllic green turf at American Family Field.
As he says, “It’s hard to have a bad day at the office when you’re overlooking a baseball field.”
Interesting angles
Curt Hogg doesn’t work for the Brewers, but he expertly covers them as a sportswriter. As a baseball-obsessed kid growing up in Brown Deer, Wisconsin, he fell in love with the team and then, with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, found the perfect outlet for his passion.
This year’s awe-inspiring Brew Crew, however, has put his writing skills to the test.
I learned, early on, how to turn something around on deadline that is interesting, in your own voice, and with a different angle on a subject.
Curt Hogg, journalist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“This team is overflowing with interesting angles and compelling characters. That makes the job harder, in a sense, because you have a responsibility to tell it in the right way,” Hogg says. “I’m as shocked as everyone else that the Brewers are going to the World Series, which is kind of a problem when you have to put it into words.”
Luckily, Hogg’s UW journalism degree prepared him for such a challenge. He recalls a formative assignment in which he had to write 400 words on a fictional Madison-area train crash in just 30 minutes.
“I learned, early on, how to turn something around on deadline that is interesting, in your own voice, and with a different angle on a subject,” he says.
During college, Hogg covered Badger sports for the Bucky’s Fifth Quarter blog. When he graduated in 2016, he paid his dues as a sportswriter for Minnesota’s West Central Tribune before landing his dream job with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel two years later. And now, he finds himself the newspaper’s man on the scene at a World Series.
During the playoffs, the Brewers had a habit of falling behind and testing their fans’ faith before a thrilling comeback. Do they have a shot against the Tampa Bay Rays?
“I won’t count them out under any circumstances,” Hogg says. “I mean, they keep doing the dang thing. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”
The UW grad who created the Milwaukee Brewers
Among UW–Madison alumni with Milwaukee Brewers connections, Allan “Bud” Selig is surely the most valuable player. Selig graduated in 1956 with dreams of becoming a UW history professor. Instead, after a stint in the automotive industry, he made a different dream come true: bringing baseball back to Milwaukee, which had lost the Braves franchise to Atlanta in 1966. In 1970, Selig bought out the bankrupt Seattle Pilots and remade them as the Brewers. He led the team to a pennant in 1982 (their only one before this year’s), then stepped away in 1992 to become Major League Baseball’s commissioner.
When Selig left that gig in 2015, he returned to an earlier love: UW–Madison. He endowed the Allan H. Selig Chair in the Department of History, served as the 2018 commencement speaker, and became the history teacher he’d always wanted to be with his long-running UW seminar, Major League Baseball and American Society Since World War II.
“I love Madison and I love the university,” Selig said on the occasion of his commencement address. “Those were four of the best years of my life.”
Photo: Jeff Miller/UW–Madison
Stadium photo: Scott Paulus/Milwaukee Brewers
Written by Dean Robbins
Link to original story: https://news.wisc.edu/from-uw-madison-to-the-world-series/