So apparently all that talk about how the Milwaukee Bucks owners were interested in buying the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s building as the site of a new arena and the Journal Sentinel owners were “willing to listen” didn’t actually mean they’d be able to agree on anything. Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry now says that talks have “gotten more complicated” (the Milwaukee Business Journal’s Rich Kirchen claims this is because of “possible environmental contamination” at the JS site) and “I think it’s going to force us to sort of go to Plan B,” which would be, um, somewhere. The JS speculates that the Bucks owners may not now be able to settle on a site by the end of the month as they’d planned, which isn’t that much speculation, really, since 2015 is only three weeks away.
Meanwhile, on the arguably more important issue of where to get the money to build this mythical arena, the co-chairs of the community group Common Ground’s Fair Play committee had an op-ed in the Journal Sentinel yesterday that began like this:
The Nov. 24 Journal Sentinel article about the possibility of funding a new Milwaukee Bucks arena with money from players’ income taxes seems almost oblivious to the fact that the tax already exists.
An excellent point, if I do say so myself. The Fair Play chairs go on to discuss how punching a $10 million a year hole in the state budget would either force the state to raise taxes or cut services (because math!), but you can probably figure out the rest from here. With the Republican who control the governorship and both houses of the state legislature the ones in favor of the “jock tax” kickbacks, budget math may not matter as much as ballot math, but it never hurts to point it out.
This could be a problem. Part of the gambit for going after the Arena/Theatre site was that the tourist taxes used to support those two buildings could be kicked back to the Bucks’ owners.
Hopefully this is just a ploy to get as low a price as possible for the Journal property.
I just read the Common Ground op-ed. What a bunch of amateurs. How do they not even address the possibility that the Bucks move out of Milwaukee? It makes it impossible to take them seriously.
Or! Or…or..or….or…! The Bucks could keep playing in same arena & save everyone all the hassle & money.
Best case scenario for Milwaukee is that it is just that, a ploy and they will make a deal in the next month.
Worst case scenario is that Chris Hansen is making noise in the background.
what exactly have the Bucks done for Milwaukee lately? anything?
By Ben’s argument, it doesn’t matter if they leave or not? circular tax arrangements end up leaving the city worse for wear. After all, businesses presumably pay taxes for some reason other than self sustainment. not sure why the NBA is different?
The Bradley Center was built in 1988 and renovated sometime around 2006. I’ll let you all in on a dirty little secret:
There’s nothing wrong with the Bradley Center.
It’s not the biggest or fanciest arena you’ll ever see, but it’s easy to get to, there’s plenty of parking around, and its a perfectly nice place to see a basketball game (concert, wrestling, whatever). My dad and I had Bucks season tickets from the late 1990’s until about 2008. There’s nothing wrong with the BC that a winning team wouldn’t cure. Maybe a few upgrades/renovations wouldn’t hurt, but we’re talking like $10-20m, not the $500m a new arena would cost.
I love the articles that talk about the NEED for a new arena in Milwaukee that complain that the gift that paid for the Bradley Center didn’t contain any provision for “the building’s long-term capital needs and operating expenses.” In other words, the donation of $90m to build the arena wasn’t good enough, you see; the Pettit family should have given them money to fund its operation and upkeep as well.
One example here, but I found others:
http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2013/9/19/4748154/bradley-center-milwaukee-bucks-new-arena
As far as the Bucks moving elsewhere, I honestly don’t think it would matter that much. In the short term people would complain, but the Bucks aren’t revered in Milwaukee anything like the Packers or even the Brewers (who struggled at the gate for years after the “new stadium effect” from Miller Park wore off).
One foot in Seattle and the other foot on a banana peel. At what point does Milwaukee become hopeless? It’s not surprising that they’ve made zero progress.
They’ll wait until the deadline, and right before Adam Silver hands the team away, the owners will say: “Oh wait, we can totally afford this on our own.”
Without Ballmer willing to lose money in the deal, are we even sure Hansen has the money to complete his arena wishes ? Sure, everyone wants a team but who wants to sink $400 million into a building ?
@ChefJoe
Good question. I know that the Nordstroms are still on board and supposedly there are investors in the “background”. Not sure how credible these rumors are though.