NBA will force team to leave Milwaukee without deal, Bucks say.
Team’s president, coach meet with Joint Finance Committee on funding
Madison — If the Milwaukee Bucks don’t get a proposed $500 million arena, the National Basketball Association will force a sale of the team and move the franchise to Seattle or Las Vegas, the team’s president told lawmakers Monday.
In a hearing on having the public pay for half of that arena, Bucks executive Peter Feigin told the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee that the team’s aging home, the Bradley Center, was holding back the franchise’s profits and in turn those of the entire NBA.
“The NBA does not want us to enter our lease in a substandard facility,” Feigin told lawmakers. “. . . This is in my opinion a great deal for the state.”
The Joint Finance meeting brought together financial analysts, lawmakers, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele and coach Jason Kidd. The panel took invited testimony but none from the public or even from some of the affected parties in the deal, such as officials from an entertainment district in Milwaukee.
With the controversial Bucks deal contributing to a stalemate over the state budget, Republican legislative leaders removed the proposal from the budget and are seeking to pass it as separate legislation with the help of Democratic votes. The action comes as lawmakers and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker seek to finish the state budget and Walker prepares to announce a presidential run July 13.
Feigin did not provide a deadline for when an arena financing bill needed to pass and told lawmakers he was not at liberty to release the team’s purchase agreement spelling out the league’s requirements for a new arena.
John Koskinen, chief economist for the Wisconsin Department of Revenue, said keeping the Bucks was about more than having a new arena that draws in ticket sales. He said professional basketball was increasingly an entertainment product that could be exported from Milwaukee to the rest
of the planet through broadcast networks, the Internet and social media.
Koskinen said the state took in $6.5 million in income taxes in 2013 from salaries paid to the Bucks and visiting opponents. Over the next 20 years, the state would take in a projected $299 million in income taxes, he said.
‘Three-dimensional chess’
Rep. Dean Knudson (RHudson) remained skeptical of the positive financial projections.
“It’s all kind of hocus-pocus. It’s wild-eyed optimism,” Knudson said.
Knudson, who’s floated the idea of having a local referendum to decide whether local taxpayers should pay for the arena, questioned Barrett about whether the city and county were doing enough to help fund it.
But the mayor responded that the financing proposal was a game of “three-dimensional chess” that needed to be approved at both the state and local level. Asking the city to do more would endanger the support of the Common Council, he said.
In a private meeting with key participants Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said they don’t have enough lawmakers from their party to approve the deal to have the public pay $250 million plus interest for the new arena.
Fitzgerald told the lobbyists, lawmakers and government officials that he will need at least three or four Democratic senators to back the proposal for it to pass his house, according to sources familiar with the meeting. Vos said 10 to 15 Democratic representatives would have to vote in favor of the deal for it to clear his chamber.
Serious opposition
In a long-expected move Thursday, Republicans on Joint Finance formally removed from the budget bill Walker’s original plan to provide $220 million in statesupported borrowing for the arena.
Instead, Joint Finance considered Monday a plan developed by the Bucks, Fitzgerald, Vos, Walker, Barrett and Abele.
Of the principal coming from taxpayers for the arena, $47 million would come from the City of Milwaukee providing a parking structure and tax incremental financing.
The rest — $203 million — would come from: bonds issued by an arena and entertainment district and paid off by state taxpayers; a mechanism to let the state collect on certain debts owed to Milwaukee County; and the extension of existing local hotel room, rental car, and food and beverage taxes being collected by the Wisconsin Center District. That district runs the Wisconsin Center convention facility, Milwaukee Theatre and UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.
There would be at least an additional $174 million in total interest costs to the public on the arena deal.
Supporters of the Bucks proposal say it’s inconceivable that the city and state would lose a professional sports team and the chance for a massive real estate investment in an underutilized part of the city.
But both Democratic and GOP lawmakers are concerned that a vote in favor of the arena would be used against them, as happened with Democrats who backed a $5 million state grant for a Bucks scoreboard in the 2010 elections.
Other opposition goes deeper. At the hearing, Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) raised question after question about the deal. And Sen. Tim Carpenter, a Milwaukee Democrat who is running for alderman, has been a vocal critic of the arena package. On Friday and again on Monday, Carpenter sent emails to lawmakers complaining about the proposal and saying he wanted to amend it to require a user fee on Bucks tickets to help pay for the arena.