Bucks’ Owners are Turning Around the City of Milwaukee
The Bucks ownership believes the future is bright for Milwaukee. Not just for the franchise, but the city as well.
In 2014 the Milwaukee Bucks ownership switched hands for the first time since 1985. Then owner Herb Kohl sold the Bucks franchise for $550 million. The new ownership group, led by Wesley Edens and Marc Lasry, was largely unfamiliar with the city of Milwaukee, or Wisconsin for that matter. Milwaukee and Wisconsin were unfamiliar with them as well. And unsure what to expect.
A year before the team was sold, Milwaukee was labeled as America’s most segregated city, an obviously unwelcomed label. A study conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee reported that only 8.8 percent of black people in Milwaukee lived in the suburbs compared to 79.5 percent of white people. In order to provide some context to just how segregated Milwaukee is, let’s take a look at the second most segregated Metro area, Buffalo. According to the same study, 29.4 percent of black people living in Buffalo are in the suburbs compared to 86.4 percent of white people. That is a significant difference between Milwaukee and Buffalo.
Part of the reason this is so eye-opening is due to job growth. This same UWM study discovered that from 1994–2009 almost all the job growth has occurred in the suburbs, away from where black people have access. While the city of Milwaukee has lost almost 28,000 jobs, the suburbs have continued to thrive, gaining around 16,000 jobs in that same span of time.
Edens and Lasry brought a lot of uncertainty with them as the new face of the franchise. They were two hedge-fund billionaires living in New York city. About as un-Wisconsin as you could get. Even though Kohl had insisted on selling the team to owners committed to Milwaukee it was immediately unclear what the new owner’s intentions were. Would they keep the Bucks in Milwaukee or look to move them to a larger, more profitable market? Shortly after the acquisition of the Milwaukee Bucks, ESPN reported that the sale included a provision that would allow the NBA to buy back the Bucks if a deal for a new arena was not in place by November 2017. That allowed the Bucks fans to breathe easy again, for a little while at least.
When the plans for the Bucks new arena was being developed, Edens went on record to state that his preference is to build in the middle of downtown. Building the new arena downtown has at least two positive impacts on the city of Milwaukee. First, it created new jobs in an area that struggles to grow its workforce. Second, it led to new jobs that were easily accessible for people who were living in the city of Milwaukee.
Edens and Lasry also understood the importance of involving leaders in the Milwaukee community as a necessary aspect to engaging with the fans and the city. A few months after their purchase of the Milwaukee Bucks they announced that the NBA board approved a group of local investors to join their ownership group. This gave Edens and Lasry some of the insight into the city they were woefully lacking.
The Bucks ownership group runs a lot deeper than any of us would have ever imagined. They are a group filled with people of diverse backgrounds, maybe more so than any other team in the NBA. Led by Lasry, a Jewish Moroccan born-American, each individual of the ownership group brings their own diverse experiences and background to a city that severely needs it.
According to The 2016 Racial and Gender Report Card generated every year by TIDES; only two teams in the NBA have majority owners of color, the Charlotte Hornets, and the Sacramento Kings. However, the Bucks have five people of color (all African-Americans) who are minority owners. That is the second-most in the NBA, behind the Hornets.
This diverse ownership group has also led to the Milwaukee Bucks hiring a diverse staff. They have hired five women in different Vice President roles including the Vice President of Business Strategy and Activation, who is an African-American. The Bucks also employ one of only nine head coaches in the NBA who is African-American.
This diversity is great for the city of Milwaukee and I’m not sure we have yet to even realize the full positive impact it has had and will continue to have in the greater Milwaukee area. The Milwaukee Bucks have increased their community participation by being one of only two teams in the NBA who work with local youth mentoring programs to host events that include current and past players as well as many others. They also give out tickets to the Bucks games at these events as well as provide many other impactful opportunities for the youth.
In October of 2015, a high-profile incident occurred involving John Henson of the Milwaukee Bucks. As Henson tells it on Instagram he was attempting to shop at a jewelry store but instead fell victim to racial discrimination. The employees at the jewelry store locked the door and wouldn’t allow Henson in. They then called the police, who arrived on the scene shortly after to defuse the situation.
Just six months ago Bucks President, Peter Feigin, had some choice words to say about Milwaukee:
“Very bluntly, Milwaukee is the most segregated, racist place I’ve ever experienced in my life. It just is a place that is antiquated. It is in desperate need of repair and has happened for a long, long time. One of our messages and one of our goals is to lead by example.”
Those comments ruffled a lot of feathers with the people of Milwaukee. While they were walked back shortly after, the public understood the truth in the statement. Changes are long overdue in a city that has been stuck in time. A city, not unlike the rest of America, that has struggled to acknowledge that progress towards equality does not mean we have achieved equality itself.
Feigin and the Bucks ownership want to demonstrate to the community exactly how change can occur. They are striving to be leaders, not only with their words but also with their actions. While the task ahead of them may prove too great to overcome, they are off to a tremendous start.
With the new arena set to open in time for the 2018–19 NBA season, the Milwaukee Bucks organization hopes to continue to provide diverse leadership to a community that sorely lacks it. Hopefully, this is only the beginning to turning around the city of Milwaukee that is grounded in place. Milwaukee deserves better. And better is what they are getting from Wesley Edens, Marc Lasry and the rest of the Bucks ownership.
