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A top exec is leaving Goodwill of Southeast Wisconsin. Plus, a recap of the [Madison Region Economic Partnership and] Urban League’s Economic Development & Diversity Summit and a profile of an Appleton-based culturally-focused mental health practice.
MADISON – Gov. Evers, together with the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSC), announced today the statewide Internet for All Wisconsin Listening Tour, a series of nine in-person and two virtual interactive meetings to help develop the state’s five-year action plan to deploy high-speed internet and improve internet affordability and adoption.
Community leaders and all interested members of the public are welcome to attend this free event. Prospective attendees are advised to visit the event website for additional event information as it becomes available.
Wisconsin could expect an allocation of $800 million to $1.1 billion to implement the state’s five-year action plan for broadband and approximately $25 million to implement the state’s Digital Equity Plan under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s ‘Internet for All’ programs. In December 2022, Gov. Tony Evers and the PSC announced the nearly $6 million federal investment for the state to develop these plans by gathering local input from Wisconsinites in broadband access and digital inclusion activities.
“With nearly everything about our economy, our workforce and our way of life depending on access to high-speed internet, it’s important for folks across the state to come together and share their experience and ideas to bridge Wisconsin’s digital divide,” said Gov. Evers. “We have come a long way to get more Wisconsinites connected than ever before with over 390,000 homes and businesses connected to new or improved internet, but there’s still more work to do. As we invest in Wisconsin’s infrastructure and future, the conversations during this Listening Tour will help guide this important work to ensure all can access affordable, reliable, high-speed internet.”
“Public participation is critical to the Commission’s broadband access and digital equity efforts, so I’m excited for the Commission to hit the road and hear from community members across Wisconsin as we develop the state’s five-year action plan,” said Chairperson Rebecca Cameron Valcq. “I look forward to the robust dialogue and community engagement during the statewide Listening Tour.”
The Internet for All Wisconsin Listening Tour is hosted by the PSC’s Wisconsin Broadband Office, in partnership with Wisconsin’s nine regional economic development organizations. If someone is unable to attend an in-person or virtual meeting, they may still submit public comment here.
Event details are as follows:
Internet for All Wisconsin Listening Tour – Southcentral (Madison)
Location:
Madison College – Truax Campus | 1701 Wright Street, Madison, WI 53704
Date:
Tuesday, May 23, 2023
9:00 AM to 11:00 AM CDT
Source: Wisconsin Public Radio
Wisconsin has regained almost all the population it lost since 2020, despite the fact that deaths are outnumbering births in the state.
But even as more people move to Wisconsin, the state’s post-pandemic population gains have been uneven. Milwaukee County continues to shrink, while the Madison area in Dane County is surging. And several rural counties in northern Wisconsin are seeing relatively high population growth rates, recently released estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show.
Between the official U.S. Census count on April 1, 2020 and July 1, 2021, Wisconsin lost 13,624 people, a drop of about 0.23 percent.
But, by July 1, 2022, Wisconsin had regained most of that loss, according to the updated census estimates. The state had nearly 5.9 million residents in 2022, which was only 1,186 fewer people than were tallied just after the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
New people relocating to Wisconsin — whether from overseas or from other states — accounted for much of the population rebound between 2021 and 2022, said John Johnson, a research fellow at the Marquette Law School’s Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education.
That’s because deaths have been exceeding births in Wisconsin every year since 2020.
Migration is going to be the driver of population change, growth or decline, going forward“Even last year, which was an improvement for the state, we still had more deaths than births,” Johnson said. “Migration is going to be the driver of population change, growth or decline, going forward.”
In 2022, 63,397 Wisconsinites died — 1,758 more than were born. By comparison, more than 7,657 people moved to Wisconsin from elsewhere in the U.S., and an estimated 8,174 people immigrated to the state from other countries, according the Census Bureau totals.
The phenomenon of deaths exceeding births has been decades in the making, Johnson said. Demographers point to factors like the aging of baby boomers, as well as trends seen in other developed nations where people are more likely to give birth later and to have fewer children overall compared to previous generations.
“The pandemic accelerated that trend (of deaths outpacing births),” Johnson said. “The switch from slightly more births than deaths to slightly more deaths than births occurred sooner than we expected, but I think most demographers expected that switch to happen later in this decade.”
In 2020, deaths exceeded births in half of all U.S. states, which was a record high number of states, according to an analysis from the University of New Hampshire. Those trends continued into 2021 (when deaths outpaced births in 26 states) and in 2022 (when there were more deaths than births in 24 states), according to a UNH analysis.
Deaths from COVID-19 itself played a role — an estimated 16,498 Wisconsinsites have died from the disease since 2020. Experts also point to the likelihood of excess deaths, meaning people who died as an indirect result of the pandemic. That could include people whose access to health care was delayed, or those who died of drug overdoses or suicide amid social isolation.
And, on the other end of the life cycle, the pandemic may have motivated parents to delay having children because of worries about finances, health risks or being cut off from social supports.
Although Wisconsin has as a whole has attracted enough transplants in the last year to nearly make up for its post-2020 population drop, rebound patterns vary widely across the state.
Those divides could have lasting economic implications, as workforces grow or shrink. Population also translates to political power, since census counts are used to calculate representation in the U.S. House of Representatives and to help determine the boundaries of state and local political districts.
Although Milwaukee County remains the state’s most populous county overall, it’s also lost the most residents in recent years.
The county’s population dropped by 20,834 people between April 1, 2020 and July 1, 2022, a decline of more than 2 percent.
In a statement, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said the county’s strategic plan aims to retain residents, in part by focusing on people who have been historically underserved.
“Milwaukee County remains at the top of some of the worst lists when it comes to race and health equity, and we’ve been at the top for the better part of the decade — this hurts everyone,” Crowley said. “If we’re concerned about the exodus from the County then we must make the investments to make our region a place people want to stay, settle down, and contribute to the community around them.”
Rates of homeownership, poverty and infant mortality vary widely between white, Black and Latino Milwaukee County residents, according to figures gathered by the county as part of its racial equity public health plan. The city of Milwaukee also routinely ranks as among the country’s most racially segregated.
The county’s post-pandemic population loss is a continuation of a long-term trend. Between the 2020 and 2010 Census, Milwaukee County lost more than 8,200 residents, close to a 0.9 percent drop.
The 2020 figure could shift somewhat, however, if an effort by Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson is successful. Johnson is challenging that city’s official 2020 Census count, arguing the Bureau undercounted the city’s residents by about 16,500 people, leading to millions of dollars in forgone federal funding.
At the other end of the spectrum was Dane County, which has seen continued population gains since 2020.
Dane County added 6,696 people since 2020, the largest number of new residents for any Wisconsin county, the new Census Bureau data shows, representing a growth rate just over 1 percent.
Madison, Dane County’s largest city, is home to Wisconsin’s state capital and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The county’s largest employers include the health care records company Epic Systems and the insurance companies American Family Insurance and CUNA Mutual, according to the Madison Region Economic Partnership. It’s also home to the scientific research companies PPD and Exact Sciences.
Between 2010 and 2020, Dane County’s population grew 15 percent to more than 561,500 people, according to the U.S. Census.
Although Dane County gained the largest number of residents, several northern Wisconsin counties actually saw the highest post-2020 growth rates as a percentage of their total populations.
Vilas County near Michigan’s Upper Peninsula gained 716 residents since spring of 2020, a 3.1 percent bump. In Burnett County, which borders Minnesota, the population likewise jumped by 3.1 percent, although that increase represented a relatively modest number of 510 additional residents.
Johnson says that could be a result of people who’ve retreated from urban areas to be closer to nature.
“Everyone I’ve talked to thinks it’s the … lifestyle popularity of moving up there and living in a more rural area with access to great parks and things like that,” he said. “Many more people moved to the Northwoods than moved away from it, and that’s what drove whatever population growth those counties did see.”
Source: Wisconsin State Journal
Madison tied with a city in Iowa for the lowest metropolitan unemployment rate in the country in February, according to data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Generally speaking, low unemployment for a city or region is usually indicative of a healthy, strong local economy,” said Gene Dalhoff, vice president of talent and education for the Madison Region Economic Partnership. “That is certainly the case in Madison.”
Unemployment rates were generally lower last February compared to the year before — 228 of the country’s 389 metropolitan areas boasted lower rates, while 131 areas had higher percentages and 30 areas had “unchanged rates,” according to the BLS.
“At the moment, there are conflicting indicators about the likelihood of a recession in the near future,” Dalhoff said. “However, should a recession occur, Wisconsin, and especially Madison, is well positioned to weather a downturn in comparison to many other regions across the country.”
Source: Wisconsin State Journal
With all the glitz of a rock concert and the high stakes of a pro sports qualifying match, professional esports is making its Madison debut.
Some 1,000 video game fans are expected to pack the Orpheum Theater Saturday afternoon for a heated battle among top-tier “Call of Duty” pros, as Minnesota Røkkr, the host team, faces off against the Florida Mutineers and the L.A. Guerrillas.
Billed as the “Minnesota Røkkr Home Series,” the event pits one four-player team against another in real time while the strategies and skills they employ in the military-style video game on their gaming stations is projected on a 32-foot-wide screen suspended above the stage.
Scene from an unofficial National Junior College Athletic Association Esports competition between students from Madison Area Technical College and Crowder College playing Call of Duty Warzone 2, March 22, 2023.
“The experience is really a hybrid of a sporting event and a rock concert,” said Brett Diamond, who worked for the NFL for 11 years becoming COO of the esports organization Version1, which includes Røkkr as well as pro teams for the video games Rocket League and Valorant.
“If you’re just watching the fans, you could be at any professional sporting event,” Diamond said. “They are passionate, they are excited, they are cheering, they are chanting. The intensity and the passion that these fans bring to the event is one of the exciting things about it.”
For many years a variety of groups – from Destination Madison and the Madison Area Sports Commission to the Madison Region Economic Partnership, or MadREP — has eyed the booming world of professional esports.
But getting them to Madison is “something that we’ve been trying to figure out for probably 10 years, as esports has risen in popularity,” said Jamie Patrick, vice-president for convention sales, sports and services at Destination Madison and the Madison Area Sports Commission. “We needed to start planting our flag and hosting a really cool event.”
“Esports is a huge global industry,” said Jennifer Javornik, co-founder of the Wisconsin Games Alliance, the professional association for the video game industry in the state. “North America is a little bit behind Asia and Europe. Madison has all the components that should lead to a vibrant esports (scene). We have college teams that are doing really well and are relatively mature. We have the university, which is a huge concentration of the demographic that loves esports.”
“It was really important to get a professional esports team to Madison to start building that ecosystem and establishing Madison as an esports community,” she said. “I see esports as something that helps our cred as a hub of the video game industry.”
A subset of the broader video game industry, esports can be played online or at a live event, and at varying levels. Madison has held a few smaller live esport events, “but nothing professional,” said Joe Hanson, head esports coach at Madison Area Technical College, which has a thriving esports program and a state-of-the-art gaming facility at its Truax campus. As with a growing number of colleges, esports is now an official part of the MATC athletics department.
The atmosphere at a live esports competition — like the Minnesota Røkkr Major II in Prior Lake, Minnesota, shown here — is a hybrid of a rock concert and pro sports event, organizers say.
Importing a pro competition like the Røkkr event “is a large step in the right direction,” said Hanson, who plans to attend Saturday with his 17-year-old son. MATC, also known as Madison College, will also be welcoming the three competing teams, who can use the school’s esports space to warm up, he said.
“It’s pretty awesome to think that we’re going to have three professional esport teams just hanging out in our lab,” he said, “using it essentially as a practice arena before their weekend events.”
Saturday’s four-hour, regular seasonal competition at the Orpheum will include matches at 2 and 5 p.m., plus a live match at another location shown virtually in between. Diamond expects about a third of Saturday’s fans will come from out of state, and the rest from across Wisconsin.
Røkkr (pronounced “rocker”) and its two opponents from Florida and California all have mixed records this year, “which makes it exciting, where everyone’s fighting to make the playoffs,” Diamond said. The teams are about halfway through their season, “so the teams are jockeying for playoff contention, and every match really matters.”
Røkkr is one of a dozen teams — 10 from the U.S., one each from Toronto and London — vying for a spot in the “Call of Duty” league championships to be held in June, with a first-place prize of $1.2 million.
“These players are the best in the world at what they do. And what they happen to do is playing video games,” Diamond said.
“The time they put in, whether it’s practice, watching film, their workout routine — they put in the same amount of hours per day that an NFL player does,” he said. And “the fans are just as invested in the wins and losses as any traditional sports fan.”
Madison’s reputation as a town with a large, engaged college-age population was not lost on the organizers of the April 1 competition, Diamond said. While many players of the first-person-shooter game “Call of Duty” range in age from 21 to 35, the average player is 26 and likely male.
Many in their 20s grew up with the game. That was the case for Jake Petersen, a business analyst in Madison who started playing “Call of Duty” more than a decade ago.
“I was a freshman in high school, and it was just the most popular game to play at the time,” said Petersen, 26, who grew up in Wauwatosa. “It was just really fun to talk to friends after school while gaming.”
He also became a fan of watching esports tournaments early on. “It was a pretty niche, grassroots scene,” unlike the more polished, high-energy events today, he said. Petersen even aspired to become a professional gamer when he was younger.
“Even though I didn’t achieve that, it was a lot of fun,” he said. “You make a lot of good memories and friends along the way when you’re playing any game competitively.”
The Røkkr team competes at a previous esports event in Prior Lake, Minnesota. Røkkr will travel to Madison to take on two other pro “Call of Duty” teams April 1 at the Orpheum Theater.
Now he plays occasionally, but remains a fan — and he’ll be at the Orpheum Saturday.
“It’s very unique for (a competition) to be coming to Madison, which is why I’m so excited about it,” he said. “Large esports events like this generally don’t come to Wisconsin. Often the bigger cities with bigger venues get those opportunities to host tournaments.”
Owned in part by the Wilf family, also owners of the Minnesota Vikings, Version1 is stepping out of its home state for the first time with the Røkkr event in Madison, Diamond said.
In 2021, the region’s software development industry, which includes game development, grossed $1.9 billion overall, according to statistics from MadREP. Jobs in the region’s software development sector number over 12,000, more than six times the national average for a region of similar size. That area job growth is projected to continue a steady 9% annual rise into 2026, according to a 2021 report.
And Madison-area colleges are well on board with the esports trend. Increasingly used as a recruiting tool, strong esports programs can give students from all walks of life a sense of camaraderie and a greater sense of connection to their school, Hanson said.
“There’s still a lot of growth that can happen in esports,” he said. “At the collegiate level, it’s exploding right now.”
“The esports world is definitely blowing up, and young people are looking to be part of a team,” agreed Suann Saltzberry, director of athletics at Edgewood College, which brought on an esports coach in early 2022 and offers scholarships for esports athletes.
“It’s an area of growth, because these kids are looking to continue to play, and to play at a competitive level,” Saltzberry said. “We’re looking to potentially renovate our esports arena space here on campus, to make it bigger and offer more PCs so more players can play at the same time. It’s been interesting for me to understand the logistics behind it and how it works, but there are kids choosing colleges for what they offer in esports.”
Fans provide a lot of the energy at live esports events, like this past competition featuring the Røkkr “Call of Duty” team out of the Twin Cities.
UW-Madison doesn’t have an esports program, but it does have an official esports club with more than 1,500 members and competitive teams for 10 different esports, said club president Michael Verban. And while the club doesn’t currently have a designated campus home, the university plans to include an esports space in the Bakke Recwell and Wellbeing Center, a student athletic facility under construction on the west side of campus that is scheduled to open this fall, he said.
Compared to many in-person pro esports events — which can fill U.S. stadiums with crowds of 13,000 to 20,000 people, and more than double that in Asia — the Røkkr competition in Madison and a second one in St. Paul on May 6 will have a different feel, Diamond said.
That’s by design. “We’re trying something new,” he said.
After touring possible sites including the Orpheum, Version1 “picked the venue, because they thought it had the vibe they were going for with their fans,” said Patrick of Destination Madison. “It’ll create an intimate atmosphere. The Orpheum’s got a lot of history. They just felt the vibe connected with who they are as a team.”
With its Downtown location and tickets priced from $33 (Gold VIP seats go for $238), Verban thinks there will be a lot of interest in Saturday’s event among college students.
“I can guarantee,” said the UW-Madison senior, “that there will be a lot of people who would love being able to see a live event in town.”
8517 Excelsior Drive, #107
Madison, WI 53717
608.571.0420
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