Wisconsin Conspiracy Theory or: Why the Badgers Run of Success is Google's Doing

Everybody has a favorite sports conspiracy theory. BTP has a new series of posts coming looking at one conspiracy theory related to each Big Ten team. (WARNING: Satire)

March 6th, 1998 is a day that will live in infamy for Wisconsin Badgers fans. It is on that day that Wisconsin lost to Illinois by five in the Big Ten Tournament at the United Center in Chicago. It is also the last day that Badgers fans and players have had to suffer without NCAA Tournament play. Seemingly coincidentally, Google was founded by Sergey Brin and Larry Page 2,100 miles away from Madison, in Menlo Park, CA on September 4th, 1998.

Allow me to let you in on a little secret: THIS IS NOT A COINCIDENCE! WAKE UP SHEEPLE!

In the coming paragraphs I will prove to you without a shadow of a doubt that Google's rise to prominence is directly tied to the Badgers.

Google's mission statement was "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." The University of Wisconsin-Madison's uses a line from an 1894 final report defending a Wisconsin's professor's right to stay uncensured, "Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere we believe the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found." Ever since 1894, Badgers have been making information accessible and useful for all students and state residents of Wisconsin. Google pretty much stole their mission statement from Wisconsin, and ever since their company started the Wisconsin basketball team has reaped the benefits. Google owes Wisconsin a debt for their success, and now the Badgers are cashing in. Let's dive a little deeper.

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Between 1894 and 1997, Google was not a company and the Badgers made the NCAA Tournament four times. Google was founded in 1998 and the Badgers have made the Tournament every season since. I don't know how else you'd explain this unprecedented run of success for the Wisconsin men's basketball team.

In March 2014, Wisconsin made the Final Four, the same month that Google acquired Green Throttle Games, a company that made a Bluetooth gaming controller for Android devices. Bo Ryan is a noted Android fanboy, having banned all iPhones from the UW lockerroom. Players like Frank Kaminsky, Sam Dekker, and even non-basketball players like Beau Allen, have been forbidden from using their iPhones at the Kohl Center. Ryan knows that he needs to keep Google happy in order for his basketball success to continue.

And of course, the precursor to all this success for both Google and the Wisconsin basketball team was the Google in Education Midwest Summit which took place in the Wisconsin Dells in the fall of 2013. The Dells are a mere hour away from Madison, close enough for Google to keep tabs on the Badgers, but far enough away as to not raise suspicion from the "powers that be" (Jim Delany, Barack Obama, Jack Donaghy, and Oprah).

Google has secretly been siphoning funds to the Badgers since 1998, as you can see in the construction of the Kohl Center which opened in *GASP* 1998. Look at the recruiting budget too. The Badger roster in 1999 consisted of a bunch of kids from Wisconsin and then Kirk Penney who came all the way from New Zealand! Just the year before Google started giving them money, and the money was finally paying off. Just years before, Wisconsin could barely recruit outside of state lines, let alone outside of the midwest; and then suddenly Google shows up and Wisconsin is recruiting players from HALF THE WORLD AWAY!?!?! It doesn't add up unless Google and UW are working together. Wisconsin doesn't make the Final Four in Penney's first season without Google's, shall we say, "blessing."

The Badgers have long held the trump card over Google, since Google took their mission statement straight from a Wisconsin educator's speech, but Google started to pay back the Badgers gradually, in basketball form. Now that the ledger is at even (thanks to last year's Final Four run), Google now holds sway over all Wisconsin basketball decisions. This upcoming season is the first since 1998 where Wisconsin won't have control over its own basketball team. Players wearing Google Glass on the court, Google doodles on jerseys, and all sorts of other brand integration and synergy and other such buzzwords will be taking over Bo Ryan's team.

This is a story that both Google and the University of Wisconsin have wanted to keep under wraps, but we here at BTP have an extensive investigative arm, one that rivals Yahoo! if I may say so, and were determined to bring this to the people. Hear this, good people of Wisconsin, set your default browser to Chrome and get ready for a big change at the flagship university of your fair state. Google is in charge now, and who knows what that will bring. On, Wisc...*computer turns off*

*COMPUTER REBOOTS*

On, Google!