Bucks President Peter Feigin yesterday during a hearing with the Wisconsin state legislature's joint finance committee said that if the team does not get a proposed $500M arena, the NBA "will force a sale of the team and move the franchise to Seattle or Las Vegas," according to Jason Stein of the MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL. Feigin said that BMO Harris Bradley Center is "holding back the franchise's profits and in turn those of the entire NBA." With the 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." 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." Wisconsin state Rep. Dean Knudson, who has "floated the idea of having a local referendum to decide whether local taxpayers should pay for the arena," questioned Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett about whether the city and county "were doing enough to help fund it." But Barrett responded that the financing proposal "was a game of 'three-dimensional chess' that needed to be approved at both the state and local level." He added that asking the city to do more "would endanger the support of the Common Council" (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 7/7). Feigin said, "The window is closing. We can't wait months, even weeks to start the public process." He added that the team "needed to start construction by October or November to avoid the NBA starting a process of seeking buyers for the team," whose lease expires in '17. Feigen: "The NBA does not want the Bucks to extend the lease in an inadequate facility" (BIZJOURNALS.com, 7/6).
DEER IN THE SPOTLIGHTS: In Milwaukee, Tom Daykin reported Deer District LLC, an investors group affiliated with the Bucks, "has bought a property that will help connect the proposed new basketball arena and its entertainment center with other downtown businesses." The 7,500-square-foot lot is "just north of the property," and real estate records show that it was sold to Deer District for $750,000 (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 7/3).
