Kohl/Arena Discussion Page 71 - Study Released

[gbpakman]

We're still paying for Miller Park here in MKE county, likely for another decade. I love the stadium, but it was (and still is) a gross misuse of taxpayer money. The Bucks are no different. If millionaires and giant corporations can't afford to pay for a stadium themselves, they should move somewhere else. Asking the public to foot the bill, especially in times like these, is a travesty.

I'm stingy and conservative but I wouldn't call $50/year a gross misuse of taxpayer money. I've reaped more than that monetary amount of benefits of having a Major League team in my city.

Well said.

I am as super conservative with money also, but am glad to pay $50-100 a year for Miller Park or a new arena - but people need to think of the tax revenue Miller Park has created. Without Miller Park, Miller Park Way would be an old, vacant industrial wasteland.

Same goes for a new arena. Development around it will create business and increase tax revenue for the region.

What needs to happen is for Walker, Barrett to come together (imagine that) and establish a Public Places Tax that will go towards the new arena, parks, museums, etc. This way everyone benefits.

Team up with Marcus Corp to work on a hotel, maybe theater nearby. Get other businesses involved and reform the park east into a entertainment destination.

[unklchuk]

Tempting to think that the city "fathers" have flubbed revitalizing the city like Herb Kohl has flubbed building a successful Bucks team. Is it time for both to adopt new paradigms?

Our team's promising youth offer some hope. Is there hope to be found for the city? Is it just increasingly aged and irrelevant? Or do they have some economic base to build on?

Expecting to see the team end the pattern of dysfunctional mistakes tied to the city finding the vision and energy to assert a more active role in the national competition -- well, that's a lot to hope for. But this is the age of plutocracy. Maybe the fat cats will find a way. And choose to follow it.

[MickeyDavis]

Any kind of sales tax increase, whether it's county or city has to be approved by the state legislature. However, the WCD has taxing authority (hotels, restaurants, rental cars) that they can increase without anyone else having to approve. That's why the Milwaukee Theatre was redone without any real debate. Getting some money from these taxes should be part of any overall financing plan. And get Gimbel out of the WCD.

[InsideOut]

It's hard to get my head around the idea of constructing a new building for a team nobody wants to watch.

I don't buy into that 100% b/c I believe if there was a "consistent" solid product on the court that people will show. The Brewers were dead in the water in the late 90's/early 2000's with dismal attendance but once they started winning AND got some marketable stars (Braun, Fielder, Hardy at the time) the people came back in droves. I think the fan base for the Bucks can be won back with winning and somehow getting 1 star player to market around. I wish Brandon Jennings would be more consistent b/c he had the potential to be that special player after that 55 point game, but I feel the window is starting to close on that.

I agree and that was what I was pointing to in my Yugo example. Not many want to watch this current team so if they fix the team people will come again and then you talk about a stadium. If the team doesn't care about contending then why should I buy them a new building?

I think the Bucks have been "consistent". Consistently mediocre. Most fans are bored to death by that. Too good to ever get the top picks but not close to being good enough to win anything. I think the highest win projection on this board was 45 wins. It's been like that for a decade now. We've seen this same movie over and over and eventually people stop caring and all you are left with are the diehard fans that will show up no matter what junk is out on the floor. I think we are pretty close to that point right now.

[MickeyDavis]

Our team's promising youth offer some hope.

Maybe. But you still need a star to market the team around the state and we don't have one.

And there are a lot of people who think the BC is just fine. County Stadium was built in the 50's and virtually everyone agreed it needed to be replaced. And having a roof on MP was a tipping point. No more cold weather issues, no rain issues. That's not the case with the BC. The fact that the BC was built for hockey, has a small lower bowl and bad sitelines for many seats just doesn't matter to a lot of people.

[unklchuk]

Our team's promising youth offer some hope.

Maybe. But you still need a star to market the team around the state and we don't have one.

And there are a lot of people who think the BC is just fine. County Stadium was built in the 50's and virtually everyone agreed it needed to be replaced. And having a roof on MP was a tipping point. No more cold weather issues, no rain issues. That's not the case with the BC. The fact that the BC was built for hockey, has a small lower bowl and bad sitelines for many seats just doesn't matter to a lot of people.

I don't disagree. For the medium and longterm. In the short term, I think a combination of a new majority owner (with interest, anticipation and honeymoon period) and promising kids playing hard would work well.

[paulpressey25]

If the team doesn't care about contending then why should I buy them a new building?.

Yeah, that's a problem. But again this won't get done if Herb Kohl owns the team. Any new arena is going to require Kohl to transition the team and I think Kohl is on board with that.

But once Kohl has accomplished the transition and the new arena, he can move on to Bud Selig status and later get his statue and become a revered figure.

So I think that some people in the town will get behind the excitement of a new owner and being able to get rid of the overhang from all these mediocre years.

My bigger concern is what Chuk pointed out. Can the local politicians here figure this out? They succeeded the last ten years in doing some absolute crap (Milwaukee Theatre, maybe Barrett's monorail downtown) and failed big time on other things they wanted to do (Pabst City, Park East development, luring Kohl's corporate HQ, etc).

Unlike most of the stuff listed above, this is actually a worthwhile project and development. But do they have the ability to pull it off?

[KeyRabbit]

Used to have a different opinion, but after the horror stories from the last year or so I've changed my mind. If professional teams want new facilities, they can fit the bill. In the case of the Bucks alone you can point to hundreds of millions of dollars wasted on terrible players that could have gone towards a new arena. Kohl's been lighting money on fire for decades.

I wish the world ran that way, but that's not a realistic analysis of how this privately-owned league operates. If people think this way then we are essentially saying goodbye to the pro basketball entertainment option because it's too expensive and don't believe the economic benefits are worth it. Maybe that's true and it will be endlessly debated.

But the league and the owners certainly don't equate payroll (an operating cost) with arena construction (a capital cost). Both costs affect the owner directly in the sense that deeper pockets can absorb a larger portion if required, but they're two different animals. Capital development for a facility like a pro arena is a public-use project that necessarily involves public and private interests. Not sure if pure public ownership is prohibited like it is in the NFL, but the net effect is that there are very few individuals or groups who are wealthy enough to take on the risks of building and operating something like that and making the right kind of return, especially in a city like MKE. It's different for a going concern that will generate revenues and expenses and that is subject to league restrictions like the cap--that can be used to fund ongoing operations. So to say that player salaries could have been used to build a facility is technically true, but it ignores all sorts of financing, accounting and tax issues that affect ownership of a team. A public-use facility is going to require public funding to be built--end of story.

[KeyRabbit]

It's hard to get my head around the idea of constructing a new building for a team nobody wants to watch.

I don't buy into that 100% b/c I believe if there was a "consistent" solid product on the court that people will show. The Brewers were dead in the water in the late 90's/early 2000's with dismal attendance but once they started winning AND got some marketable stars (Braun, Fielder, Hardy at the time) the people came back in droves. I think the fan base for the Bucks can be won back with winning and somehow getting 1 star player to market around. I wish Brandon Jennings would be more consistent b/c he had the potential to be that special player after that 55 point game, but I feel the window is starting to close on that.

The BC rocked during the FTD season--a good product will drive good attendance, and MKE has shown that it can be a very good fanbase. Not many people will go to more than one or two games just to see a new arena, but they will continue to show up for a team they believe is contending. But I think linking the two (i.e., this poorly-run franchise isn't worth a new building) is dangerous because the issue of whether the NBA should be in MKE shouldn't be directly equated to how Kohl/cronies have run the team. Is there justification that ownership needs a new facility to make it viable to have an NBA franchise here? Is management putting a good product on the floor and using the public's money well? Two different questions.

[InsideOut]

It's hard to get my head around the idea of constructing a new building for a team nobody wants to watch.

I don't buy into that 100% b/c I believe if there was a "consistent" solid product on the court that people will show. The Brewers were dead in the water in the late 90's/early 2000's with dismal attendance but once they started winning AND got some marketable stars (Braun, Fielder, Hardy at the time) the people came back in droves. I think the fan base for the Bucks can be won back with winning and somehow getting 1 star player to market around. I wish Brandon Jennings would be more consistent b/c he had the potential to be that special player after that 55 point game, but I feel the window is starting to close on that.

The BC rocked during the FTD season--a good product will drive good attendance, and MKE has shown that it can be a very good fanbase. Not many people will go to more than one or two games just to see a new arena, but they will continue to show up for a team they believe is contending. But I think linking the two (i.e., this poorly-run franchise isn't worth a new building) is dangerous because the issue of whether the NBA should be in MKE shouldn't be directly equated to how Kohl/cronies have run the team. Is there justification that ownership needs a new facility to make it viable to have an NBA franchise here? Is management putting a good product on the floor and using the public's money well? Two different questions.

Again I agree you need a good team to draw fans. I'll go watch a bad brewer team because I can tailgate before the game on a warm summer day. I can hang out and chat with friends at the game while my wife takes my bored son to the play area inside Miller Park. I won't drive to watch a bad Bucks team because I don't have those other options like a warm day at Miller Park brings. I went to a Bucks / Pistons game a couple of years back. The Bucks were down 12 at the half and starting the second half Skiles left all the starters on the bench to send a message. The Bucks were down 20 most of the second half at that night was one of the biggest wastes of time in my entire life. I would rather have watched paint grow. Most of the fans around me were all staring at the phones. I have not gone back since. I need to be entertained and right now the money and the drive just aren't worth the risk I won't be. A new building won't change that.

I say no to the first one as long as Kohl runs the team the way he does. For obvious reasons I also say no to the second one.

[raysbookclub]

I went to a Bucks / Pistons game a couple of years back. The Bucks were down 12 at the half and starting the second half Skiles left all the starters on the bench to send a message.

that tune sounds familiar.

[paulpressey25]

I'll go watch a bad brewer team because I can tailgate before the game on a warm summer day.

I don't disagree with that but only 1 million showed up in 1995 at County Stadium the year the stadium bill went through that August. I was there at summer for a game with about 3,000 others. No one was coming to games then and no one cared at all about the Brewers. Glenn Robinson was a bigger story at the time.

Even Miller Park wasn't a magic bullet. I had tickets from work in 2003 that I had to use on a couple dates. Could get no takers. None. No one wanted to go. Brewer attendance at MP started at 2.8, dropped to 1.9 and then 1.7 in 2003.

Bud had out a prospectus when he was trying to get new investors (not actually sell his controlling interest in the team) that projected attendance dropping to 1.4 million. The Brewer payroll projections in that prospectus were very, very ugly because the gate revenue was so low.

The Brewers are only able to have this $80 to $100mm payroll if we have 2.5 to 3.0 million every year.

Where I'm going with this is the fact that the Brewers situation was equally ugly when Miller Park was approved. And even after Miller Park was built, the Brewers were going down the drain until a new competent owner showed up and significantly improved the product.

People just assume the Brewers have always been good and thus it was a no brainer to do that stadium because "baseball is more popular". It was not during those periods.

[InsideOut]

I'll go watch a bad brewer team because I can tailgate before the game on a warm summer day.

I don't disagree with that but only 1 million showed up in 1995 at County Stadium the year the stadium bill went through that August. I was there at summer for a game with about 3,000 others. No one was coming to games then and no one cared at all about the Brewers. Glenn Robinson was a bigger story at the time.

Even Miller Park wasn't a magic bullet. I had tickets from work in 2003 that I had to use on a couple dates. Could get no takers. None. No one wanted to go. Brewer attendance at MP started at 2.8, dropped to 1.9 and then 1.7 in 2003.

Bud had out a prospectus when he was trying to get new investors (not actually sell his controlling interest in the team) that projected attendance dropping to 1.4 million. The Brewer payroll projections in that prospectus were very, very ugly because the gate revenue was so low.

The Brewers are only able to have this $80 to $100mm payroll if we have 2.5 to 3.0 million every year.

Where I'm going with this is the fact that the Brewers situation was equally ugly when Miller Park was approved. And even after Miller Park was built, the Brewers were going down the drain until a new competent owner showed up and significantly improved the product.

People just assume the Brewers have always been good and thus it was a no brainer to do that stadium because "baseball is more popular". It was not during those periods.

I totally get what you are saying and remember those bad Brewer teams. While I can't speak for everyone I can say I still went to watch a couple Brewer games a year during those bad years because of the tailgating and hanging out on a nice day. Nothing they build in downtown Milwaukee will get me to come and watch a bad Bucks team.

I also think the Brewers had a better argument when they said they needed a new stadium to compete. Miller Park added the luxury boxes and other forms of revenue that helped bring in more cash. In baseball that cash was needed to compete. I don't think that argument holds water for the Bucks. Well at least not with Kohl in charge. Give Kohl the extra money and I'll assume he mismanages it and it will lead to signing 2 Goodens instead of one just one.

The Bucks need a new owner that can build a winning team and at that point I think the fans come back and then a new stadium has a chance. I realize a person could have said that about the Brewers and Miller Park but again I feel the need was greater for the Brewers than for the Bucks. The economic landscape was also much better. The political landscape has also changed quite a bit. The rich guys that have the money for this kind of stuff will be seeing big tax increases. When people are after your money so it can be handed over to the government I would guess it makes them less likely they use it for these types of projects. Those rich guys might be more inclined to sit on the sidelines and see how things play out before they start committing their own cash. I guess we'll see but it helps some rich guys names are being mentioned.

[paulpressey25]

I also think the Brewers had a better argument when they said they needed a new stadium to compete. Miller Park added the luxury boxes and other forms of revenue that helped bring in more cash.

The Bucks need club seats and restaurants to compete with the new destination center arenas being built. I think the story is the same.

Additionally, the Brewers money situation with MLB has been much worse than what you have in the NBA. Baseball revenue discrepancy is still massive and they have no real salary cap nor maximum player salaries. The Brewers will always be well behind the 8-ball in their ability to compete or create a sustainable roster. The minute this team truly falters, attendance will drop and so will the payroll in a vicious cycle.

In the NBA, you need only one player to make your franchise go big time. And the NBA limits the most that guy can be paid so that all franchises can afford it. Granted the guy could bolt like LeBron but Cleveland got 7-years out of him and a Finals appearance.

The Lakers are a problem, but most other teams are now bringing their payrolls in line with the new luxury tax. A new arena with decent attendance and new revenue sharing will allow the Bucks to run a $65 or $70 million dollar payroll, which will allow them to compete much better in the NBA than the MLB system affords the Brewers.

I think unfortunately you are too battled scarred from Herb Kohl's poor team management which is understandable. Other than the Wizards, Warriors and pre 2011 Clippers, the Bucks over the last 20-years have been the worst performing and worst managed franchise in the league.

Even doormat teams that come to mind like the Kings had runs of greatness in the last 20-years. The Knicks made a couple NBA finals as did the Nets. Ditto for the Magic. The Hawks have had a number of second round, 50-win years. Hornets had plenty of stars and playoff appearances when in Charlotte. The T-Wolves had an all world player in Garnett and a WCF appearance along with a string of 50-win seasons.

We are at the very bottom of fan experiences the past 20-years. Just give us a middle of the road management team and performance and we are talking about a much different atmosphere around here.

[KeyRabbit]

Give Kohl the extra money and I'll assume he mismanages it and it will lead to signing 2 Goodens instead of one just one.

That's missing the point if the question is whether a new arena is needed. Kohl or any FO can make good and bad decisions, but conditioning support for something fundamental to fielding a competitive team based on projected waste ignores the fact that more revenue would allow the team more attempts or leeway to take shots at putting together a winning combo. Lots of teams have signed their own Gooen; some of them can absorb it or recover faster than the Bucks. Much of that is based on the wealth of the owner but the arena revenues also figure in.

The Bucks need a new owner that can build a winning team and at that point I think the fans come back and then a new stadium has a chance.

Agree on new ownership (or at least ownership involvement) but that's precisely how to stonewall negotiations with an owner. They all do in fact spend a lot of money to own and operate an NBA team, and most are driven by return on investment. From that financial standpoint, saying "spend more and show me wins, then maybe I will consider helping to pay for a new arena that will improve your investment" usually falls on deaf ears because it shifts too much risk to the owner. Yes, I know they are super rich and can handle it, etc, but that's the analysis. They're not doing this to increase the chance they lose money. It's actually a luxury that we've had an owner so dedicated to the state. But at some point it's just too much money, so the public taxpayer has to be the first one to blink and commit to support.

[Chapter29]

The Bucks definitely need stop marketing themselves as just a Milwaukee team. They can easily pick up the youth fan base across the state if they marketed them better. It would obviously be easier if they had a very, very good player on the team, but I still think they could do a much better job.

The only way that's going to happen is if this team has a superstar that people are actually interested in seeing. People aren't going to ever care about a middling boring team with no real future when there are teams like the Packers and Brewers to follow instead.

I don't buy that. A superstar would seal the deal, but it is not required. We simply need to be a winning team and the fans will come. We can win without a superstar....maybe not win it all of course but...

[xTitan]

I don't think Oklahoma City is a good comparison, situations are totally different. Oklahoma city has NO professional sports teams, so the thought of getting any professional sports team will make things much more palpable for the residents of that county. I also believe there is zero chance Abele would even attempt to push this through without a referendum, it would be political suicide and surprising to me , Abele has been fiscally conservative on many issues. I also don't believe Milwaukee county as a whole would pass this, sure it would help Milwaukee but Milwaukee has a terrible reputation throughout the suburbs and outlying areas, not to mention the incompetence of projects like the Milwaukee theater and the poorly built convention center, nobody has any faith in these people. For this to have a chance, I believe Kohl will need to sell the team at the end of this year to someone with WI ties who is extremely respected and wouldn't be surprised if Kohl donated a majority of not the entire sale to the project with his naming rights, it would be his legacy. As far as the team goes, I don't see promising young players, not a star among them, much less a superstar.

[Thunder Muscle]

In my opinion the Brewers turned around b/c of "star" and marketable players. People knew Braun and Fielder were the real deals. Weeks, Hart were good players. Hardy was a solid player that appealed to the women demographic. The Brewers became "cool" if you will and baseball fans knew we had a few legit stars on our hands. The Bucks just don't have that right now. Jennings has some appeal but he's not the "star" Ray Allen ever was in his latter years here. Some may say Big Dog was a disappointment, but he was a star before he even came to Milwaukee. Cassell was a winner and had personality, George Karl the Coach was the same. And that unravelled fast, but we just need some of that talent and marketability again.

And I also think Downtown MKE needs a new arena. I think if the Bucks leave that area of town will become a wasteland. Marquette can't support the BC alone, it will become an aging building, your top tier entertainment options will bypass the building/city, etc. Milwaukee needs to bill this as an entertainment decision, not Bucks choice.

[Thunder Muscle]

And I don't think there is any way this thing passes a tax vote. Not this economy and with the Bucks being as irrelevant as ever. Right now your general Wisconsin sports fan is very content with the Packers, Brewers, and Badgers, especially State wide. I went to the preseason game in GB and the attendance was depressing. Only drew 4,000+ and seemed like 1,000 people. The Bucks are mostly irrelevant outside of Milwaukee right now. I do think, as said above, that winning and getting a star can change that.

[paulpressey25]

This thing is going to have to get done before the Bucks turn it around. The timetable set forward by these guys is to have a groundbreaking in 2015. That gives them two years.

Agreed it would take a really respected local new owner to make it happen.