The Milwaukee Bucks, valued at $405 million by Forbes, were sold Wednesday to New York bank investors Marc Lasry and Wesley Edens for $550 million, ending Senator Herb Kohl’s 29-year tenure as owner.
Lasry and Edens bring a breath of fresh air to a team that finished a league-worst 15-67 this year and saw diminished fan support as the dismal season progressed.
The leadership change will have a monumental impact on the Bucks, but the ripple effect will certainly reach Marquette as well.
Hopes for a new arena
Kohl, Lasry and Edens will contribute a combined $200 million for a new arena, and additional private supporters are expected. Early estimates put the cost of an arena in the $450 million range.
Although there isn’t a definite location for the arena, Kohl would like for it to stay downtown. Perhaps the aesthetic nightmare that is the BMO Harris Bradley Center would be demolished and simply replaced by the future facility.
The men’s basketball team would play in a state-of-the-art stadium fitting for the program’s ever-mounting expectations. Although recruits may not take a team’s arena deeply into account when mulling their choices, it would not hurt Marquette’s to make it a selling point. This should especially be the case when it tries to persuade nearby recruits, including highly touted Chicago-area players.
Marquette fans will need to be patient with this whole process. The Bucks’ lease at the Bradley Center ends Sept. 30, 2017, and if an impressive amount of progress is made over the next 12 to 18 months toward planning the new facility, the lease would be extended to 2019.
The entire arena plan will hang on taxpayer support if not enough private funding is raised. Surrounding counties have staunchly opposed helping pay for a new facility, especially since the Miller Park sales tax will likely need to be extended from 2018 to 2020, at which point it will be 24 years since the tax began.
Getting more fans in the seats
At least in the arena’s first year, there should be a significant increase in attendance for all regular events, including Marquette games.
Men’s basketball home games saw a slight decline in attendance over the last five years, which is not good news for a school’s premier sport.
Fans should flock to the facility out of sheer curiosity. This would revitalize the crowd intensity that opponents openly feared in the past and that went missing down the stretch this season.
It’s difficult to predict the Golden Eagles’ product four to five years from now, but regardless of their roster, a new facility would have the city and university buzzing with anticipation.
NCAA Tournament hosting opportunities
Marquette hosted the second and third rounds of the NCAA Tournament in March, but the chances it may host again are unclear unless the new arena is approved and built.
Each tournament game at the Bradley Center either sold out or was close to it thanks to Wisconsin playing in front of a home state crowd. A new arena would cement Marquette as a viable hosting site for at least 20 years, during which time the tournament could come to Milwaukee perhaps four times.
Hosting allows for the university to be recognized to a certain extent by the NCAA and the media, and it provides economic support for the city due to the thousands of visitors.
There is not much the men’s basketball program can directly benefit from Lasry and Edens’ purchase besides the prospects of a new home, but that’s all it may need to help move to the next level.
