Tag Archives: New Arena

Save Our Bucks

GOP Stakes Out Arena Position

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In the week after Governor Walker set forth his arena funding proposal, a number of key GOP legislators have now offered their thoughts on the chance for passage as part of the 2016-17 State budget.

The viewpoint of most can be summed up in this interview that Channel 12’s Mike Gousha just posted with State Representative John Nygren. In the interview, Nygren highlights that he thinks Walker’s plan makes fiscal sense and has merit. However, he also makes clear that he views it important the City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County come up with some financial aid as well. Nygren notes that he’d prefer the State funding component be $100 or $150 million dollars rather than the $220 million proposed by Walker. Here are our brief thoughts on where things stand. Continue reading →

Save Our Bucks

Walker’s Arena Proposal: Thoughts and Questions

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It was an exciting day for Bucks fans as Governor Scott Walker presented his arena financing plan this morning. Does this mean we are home free? Is NBA basketball now secure in Milwaukee for decades to come? Not yet. There are still some battles to come in the coming months. We will need all of you to be ready to have your voices heard with your State and local legislators. We will have details shortly on some events that you can participate in to show your support for the project, so we’ve got some work to do.

All that being said, if you assume Bucks fan angst over the team relocating is a malady that began around 2003 when Senator Kohl almost sold the team to Michael Jordan, we are probably 95% through this. We’ve still got to get through that last 5% that will entail LED outlining their site plans and the politicians lining up to hopefully make this funding plan a reality.

We have a few thoughts and questions from this morning’s press conference. So let’s get this started!

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Scott Walker Steps Up

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For those of you just catching up on the news, the concept of the Bucks remaining in Milwaukee for the long haul just had its single most important day since Senator Kohl announced the sale of the team last April.

As reported by Rich Kirchen in the Milwaukee Business Journal, Governor Walker’s proposed 2016-17 State budget will include provisions for state income taxes paid by NBA players to be used to fund the principal and interest payments on tax-exempt bonds to be issued to fund an estimated $200 million dollar public contribution to a new arena. This is what has been referred to in the media as the “jock-tax”.

Most observers had expected Walker to be the last domino to fall in the sequence of events to allow for a new arena. Conventional wisdom called for the Bucks to propose a plan, the public and politicians to debate it, and, at the end of that debate Walker to weigh in with his thoughts. Continue reading →

New Arena Sites Narrow – Our Thoughts

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Don Walker has a new piece up noting that the Bucks are narrowing the new arena site choices down to areas in Park East and vicinity. We encourage you to read the piece as background before you read our thoughts on the options being considered. The site location debate is coming to a head and most parties expect some announcement to be within the next 30-60 days. As always, we’ve some opinions on things, so let’s go! Continue reading →

Wes Edens Interview with Don Walker – Our Takeaways

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Don Walker with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a new piece up where he interviews Bucks owner Wes Edens on a number of arena related topics. This is a must read for Bucks fans as Edens highlights some important points and foreshadows where he’d like to see things head in the arena debate.

Here are the important takeaways from that piece:

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New Arena Site – The Journal Building

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Both Rich Kirchen of the Milwaukee Business Journal and Don Walker of the Journal Sentinel have been doggedly pursuing the new arena story for the past six-months and have done a great job. However they got scooped last night by Jim Owczarski of OnMilwaukee.com, who tweeted out:

Kudos to Jim on breaking this news. Now let’s talk about where we go from here. Continue reading →

New TV Contract Another Game Changer

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Details are leaking out tonight about the new TV contract that the NBA is about to enter into with their broadcast partners, Turner and ESPN. The numbers are a stunner and larger than initially thought. We are going to break down the details for you, as they explain a great deal about why the Bucks sold for so much money last Spring and why the team’s future in Milwaukee should be very bright.

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BMO Harris Bradley Center Milwaukee, Save Our Bucks

Uihlein Letter Potentially a Game Changer

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Yesterday, David Uihlein, the son of BMO Harris Bradley Center benefactor Jane Bradley Pettit, released a public letter advocating that the community tear down the BMOBC, tear down the Arena (or Mecca or Milwaukee Panther Arena if you prefer) and also tear down the Milwaukee Theater. On said land should go a new arena wrote Uihlein.

Before going further, we encourage you to read the coverage of this letter by Don Walker at MJS here and/or the coverage by Rich Kirchen of the Milwaukee Business Journal here as both provide excellent summaries of the letter itself and background for our commentary below.

When we first saw this story, we tweeted out that it might be game-changer.  No, a mere letter won’t build a new arena, but the content of the letter will bring about some needed dialogue on a number of fronts: Continue reading →

What to Build and Where to Build It?

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Summer league is complete, LeBron and Love are settled in Cleveland, Packer season is upon us and the Brewers are in a tight division race. All reasons why the NBA and new arena will likely slip from the minds of Bucks fans for the next 60-days.

We want to use this opportunity to offer our thoughts on where the new arena should be located and how the building should be designed taking into account some of the lessons learned from the 1985 construction of the Bradley Center. Strap in and let’s go!

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A Few Thoughts on Questions Raised by @SykesCharlie

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We had a chance to listen to the 11:00am hour of the Charlie Sykes Show this morning on WTMJ 620 AM, the flagship station of the Bucks. Between Charlie, Jeff Wagner and various callers, there were a number of reasonable questions raised regarding the sale of the Milwaukee Bucks and their future in Milwaukee. Some of the discussion revolved around points raised in our article from yesterday that we encourage you to read in conjunction with the Q & A below.

We didn’t take detailed notes on each question or point discussed on Sykes show, but there were clearly some common themes that we wanted to provide our thoughts on, thus we’ve paraphrased questions raised during the show and offered our thoughts to those questions below. So let’s get started! Continue reading →