$250 million. That’s how much public funding the investors and owners of the Milwaukee Bucks future want in order to keep the team in Wisconsin.
Taxpayers might be about to feel the hit as the fond franchise of dear steers looks to move from their classic, Bradley Center home of 17 years to a new, state of the art arena and entertainment complex (think the STAPLES Centre and Nokia Live across Chick Hearn way).
This new move is part of the Bucks radical rebrand featuring a more mature logo and some green and white, instant vintage jerseys that take it back to the good old, classic days of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson. This new outfit and colour scheme seems to be doing the numbers for a new team led by The Alphabet, Michael Carter-Williams, sophomore retiring from injury Jabari Parker and new, big free agent signing Greg Monroe and this teams promising potential future of prominence.
But will it all be a waste?
Will the jerseys have to be recalled and rebooted, especially with one of the new Bucks secondary logos being made out of the outline of the map of their current home? If the right amount of dollars can’t be ponied up then this animal might have to make a red, bee-line down the atlas to a new residence.
This is a league where teams move all the time. After all there aren’t many Grizzly bears in Memphis and its New Orleans, not Utah that’s famous for Jazz music. Speaking of which, even the Charlotte Hornets moved to New Orleans (by way of Oklahoma during Hurricane Katrina, which ended up giving these honourable hosts the Oklahoma City Thunder franchise from a city where about to get into) then renamed themselves the Pelicans. Whilst the city of Charlotte ended up getting an expansion franchise back in the form of the Bobcats, who last year they renamed…wait for it, the Hornets. All of that for almost nothing.
Seattle has been calling like tossed salads and scrambled eggs. They’ve wanted a new franchise-or even their old one back-since the Supersonics where taken to Oklahoma City and renamed and rebranded as the Thunder. A reign fall that now leaves Seattle with only the Storm of a perfect WNBA franchise. The colours would be right, but we’re sure the Milwaukee Bucks won’t want to lose their identity that they’ve worked so hard and paid so much for to homage and redux only these last few months. No matter how much the NBA wants the Sonics back, in a city as perfect as Seattle. The Kings of Sacramento almost found a new throne and home here, but just like these new Bucks nothing would feel as right as the original Sonics.
So maybe as the chips are down the Bucks may take a gamble in Las Vegas. Sin City is famous for UNLV basketball on the NCAA front but have been trying to throw their hand in for an NBA franchise and trying to prove that the bright lights and big money won’t be a distraction to players, ever since successfully rolling out and hosting the 2007 All-Star Game, the first time a non NBA city had laid this all out on the table and court. If the Bucks do take a spin to the city of sin you may as well call these Las Vegas (Mega) Bucks the Las Vegas Millionaires. They’ll surely have the 250 mill needed for a new palace up the road from Caesars.
Still as much as Nevada and the birthplace of Nirvana need the hoops heaven of an NBA franchise, so does the great city and NBA home of Milwaukee.
After all those years and recent months the Bucks can’t stop here!
