RealGM Bucks fans make a stand - Paper Bag Protest

[KnicksGadfly]

good luck guys...maybe when you're done, you can come down here and get rid of isiah and dolan for us.

[5DOM]

I support it. Great job!

For the FANS, By the FANS!

Of the owner

[trwi7]

Looking at the attendance the Bucks are at 88.8 percent capacity.
That 11.2% that aren't filling the seats are the ones who are protesting the correct way. A lack of butts in the seats is what will motivate an owner to improve the team, not people with bags over their heads.

I always find it ironic when people pay for tickets than choose to show up with a bag over their head because the team is terrible. How many of those fans in the arena that gave you a thumbs up will decide not to renew their season tickets next year? My guess is very few.

Well they did buy the cheapest tickets in the arena ($10) and were discouraged from buying any concessions.

Anyways the 88.8% capacity is a joke. We're lucky to draw 10,000 a night. Weekday games there's usually about 7,000-8,000 there and attendance has been falling since the 2000-2001 season.

[trwi7]

Ultimately, why would an owner interrupt on the coaching job? Is this true that he is against triangle offense, or the Villanueva being started?

Why would a GM every interrupt in this, only Mark Cuban could probably do this.

Yes he did stop the running of the triangle offense. He told the coach to give Gadzuric playing time. We've had several players either ask to be traded or be open to being traded. He doesn't let the people who should run basketball operations let them run basketball operations and that is the source of fan frustration as the team has been on a downward spiral for the 20 years he's owned the team.

Here's the link to our board about Kohl telling Krystkowiak to stop running the triangle.

http://realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=762865

[Nowak008]

you have to love it when fans are wrong..

I'll show some love to this effort, because you guys are trying..definitely showing some loyalty to your team..

my first statement is about the off-season that just went by..RealGM predictions..I hated on the Bucks for the entire off-season, claiming they wouldn't do anything this year, and I got blasted by Bucks fans for the entire off-season..I guess I was pretty accurate..

I feel bad for the fans though..going into the future with your #1 option being an overrated chucker with no leadership skills..

Go away.

lol... that sounds very very odd. We didn't wanted Mo and that is why we let him go.

Sloan has been quoted saying one of his biggest mistakes in his career letting Mo go.


Thanks to everyone that has given praise.

[AgEnT50]

(picture)

[Buck You]

Two people could show up for the Bucks game and Herb Kohl still wouldn't stop what he's doing. He's stubborn and won't change his ways.

[miller31time]

How long has Kohl been owner? - ie: was he there when Ernie Grunfeld was GM?

[trwi7]

How long has Kohl been owner? - ie: was he there when Ernie Grunfeld was GM?

20 some years.

[Buck You]

How long has Kohl been owner? - ie: was he there when Ernie Grunfeld was GM?

I believe he started in 1985.

[trwi7]

Courtesy of adamcz.

[Troy McClure]

(picture)

HA!

[phx#7]

-= original quote snipped =-



lol... that sounds very very odd. We didn't wanted Mo and that is why we let him go.

It sounds like you were lied to, unless it was Cleveland.

If Utah was to do a trade with you, if you start and end in Michael Redd.

A lot of Bucks fans were convinced they turned down a trade for Amare this year as well.

I hope you guys kept those bags, it looks like Celine Dion is coming to town.

[GrandAdmiralDan]

Looking at the attendance the Bucks are at 88.8 percent capacity.
That 11.2% that aren't filling the seats are the ones who are protesting the correct way. A lack of butts in the seats is what will motivate an owner to improve the team, not people with bags over their heads.

Low attendance doesn't seem to motivate Senator Kohl though.
We've tried that.
Attendance has been dropping like a rock over the last 6 seasons and other than the 3 seasons prior, attendance wasn't that good for most of the 1990s.
Kohl has owned the team for over 20 years. His ownership has resulted in one good season.

We figured we'd try something different.
There were 39 of us taking part, but 12 of them already had their own tickets. The other 27 of us sat together in the block of 30 tickets I had purchased for $10 each (I scalped the leftover tickets for $20 so I only ate $10 on the tickets).
We didn't buy concessions, so the Bucks basically only pulled in $300 gross from us on tickets but at the cost of being publicly embarrassed by our demonstrations. I promise they would have paid more than twice that amount if they would have been guaranteed that our demonstration wouldn't have happened.

As it was, since some of the general plans (not all the details, I managed to keep some of those secret) for our demonstrations were known ahead of time, they scheduled more ushers and arena security for the game than normal. They also tripled the amount of actual police officers that they have in the arena, which means they had to pay the city for the extra police. I promise you we caused them to spend extra money they wouldn't have normally spent, and that MORE than offset the $300 they got from us for the block of 30 cheap tickets I bought. The tickets were mainly to get us in the door.

This was extensively planned out over the last couple weeks (I happened to be in charge of organizing and planning) and I was very meticulous about all the details. That is why, for example, no one got denied entry to the arena, no one got asked to remove their bags, and no one got ejected. I had contingencies for everything.

We marched through the lower bowl concourse for 15 minutes prior to the game, at halftime, and a little bit after the game. The concourses are packed during those times which is why this was part of the plan.
Thousands of people saw us during those marches.

When the 27 of us who were sitting together were in our seats, we were noticed by the just under 1000 people sitting in our section and the sections on either side of us.
When someone a few rows down from us won an in-game contest and they had our section on the jumbotron, we managed to get our entire group on the jumbotron for 10 seconds before they realized what was going on. A huge buzz of laughter, etc. rippled around the arena.

In the 4th quarter, when I executed my plan to get some of my revolters past the ushers and down by Senator Kohl's center court seats a few rows from courtside, a large percentage of the arena saw the commotion that 12 of us were causing down by Senator Kohl. That is when AP finally came through for me and took that priceless photo.

Then ~25 of us set up on a landing right above one of the exit escalator groups. 90% of the people that exit the arena use one of the four exit escalator groups, and the two of them on one side of the building get more traffic than the other two. We demonstrated there and everyone going down that escalator group saw our demonstration right then. About 4,000 people came down that escalator group and saw us.

It is impossible to know the exact percentage of people that saw us throughout the evening, but for sure many THOUSANDS of people in the arena saw us. That is pretty good exposure by itself and we only had to pay in as it turns out $300.

I always find it ironic when people pay for tickets than choose to show up with a bag over their head because the team is terrible. How many of those fans in the arena that gave you a thumbs up will decide not to renew their season tickets next year? My guess is very few.

Perhaps.
But this is getting quite a bit of attention. This has created a lot of buzz. People are talking about it.
It got quite a bit of attention in the week leading up to it before the protest even occurred:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/st ... nks/080314
http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-3 ... llets.html
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=s ... eam_report
http://www.brewhoop.com/storyonly/2008/3/14/103649/531
http://hardwoodparoxysm.blogspot.com/20 ... ed_14.html
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/nba_ex ... =nba,71762
http://deadspin.com/368315/totally-a-coincidence-mkay
http://my.nba.com/forum.jspa?forumID=300012410

And after it occurred, it got significant exposure as well:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/photos?ph ... =280315015
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/photo;_ylt= ... 07&prov=ap
http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-3 ... llets.html
http://www.brewhoop.com/storyonly/2008/3/17/101543/753
http://deadspin.com/368734/kings-of-the-hardwood
http://thebiglead.com/?p=5023
http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/2008/03/ ... kohl/#cont


If you go to google and type in Herb Kohl bag protest you will find this being talked about in even more places.

[Nowak008]

Another gem is a guy who actually went through our game thread and found a bunch of quotes and posted them on his blog.


http://www.boxxet.com/Milwaukee_Bucks/C ... s.1lk1pm.d

[GrandAdmiralDan]

http://www.brewhoop.com/story/2008/3/19/03949/9379

[snaquille oatmeal]

Bucks fire GM Larry Harris

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=AnrdRzse6oIHAAV3HnvAg9S8vLYF?slug=txbucksharris&prov=st&type=lgns