Milwaukee Bucks Could Get Financial Support from Local Businesses


A local business group is planning to help out the Bucks and their aging gymnasium, much in the same way they did for the city’s baseball team a number of years back. From the Journal Sentinel: “In the mid-1990s, the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce launched an ambitious and costly campaign to show doubters that the Milwaukee Brewers were important to the local economy and the region’s national image. The group guaranteed that it would sell $6.15 million worth of tickets, lobbied the state to provide funding for what later became Miller Park, and lent the Brewers at least $14 million. Last week, a small group of influential business leaders and the MMAC began talking in earnest about a more modest campaign to provide support for the Bradley Center and its biggest and most important tenant, the Milwaukee Bucks. At this stage, any formal campaign in behalf of the Bradley Center is months away, according to Timothy Sheehy, MMAC’s president. For now, the group is in the process of finding ways to encourage MMAC members to look for sponsorship opportunities at the Bradley Center or buying tickets or suites at Bucks’ games. The nascent campaign – with a target of $2.2 million in sponsorship, ticket or suite sales – has the support of both the Bradley Center and the Bucks. ‘This is an ongoing discussion which is focused on closing the gap between what the Bradley Center is operating with now and what they need to be viable,’ Sheehy said in an interview last week. ‘Right now this amounts to looking at the BC and recognizing that it needs a greater level of support from the community.'”