{"id":749,"date":"2004-03-18T00:18:00","date_gmt":"2004-03-18T00:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=749"},"modified":"2018-08-10T09:21:09","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T14:21:09","slug":"749","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2004\/03\/18\/749\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Buck You, Senator Kohl<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Millionaire Senator Herbert Kohl, D-Wisconsin, is starting to make &#8220;buy me an arena&#8221; noises in the city of Milwaukee, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jsonline.com\/news\/metro\/mar04\/215157.asp\" target=\"new\"><i>Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel<\/i> reports<\/a>.  Kohl owns the Milwaukee Bucks NBA team, which plays at the creaky 16-year-old Bradley Center:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Bradley Center opened in the fall of 1988 and is one of the oldest and smallest arenas in the 29-team National Basketball Association, facts that Kohl conceded would be a surprise to most Milwaukeeans.<\/p>\n<p>Despite its limitations, Kohl said, the building was in excellent shape.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Apparently, the board that runs the Bradley Center wants to make upgrades, but that&#8217;s not enough for the distinguished gentleman:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Milwaukee Bucks owner Herb Kohl said Tuesday that it did not make sense to spend $50 million to $100 million to remodel the Bradley Center and said the community would have to discuss in the future the need for a new arena.<\/p>\n<p>The Democratic U.S. senator, noting that it had been a joy this season to own the team, said spending millions more to remodel the facility &#8220;would not extend its useful life.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Rather, he said, the Bradley Center board ought to consider more modest upgrades to the building that will generate new revenue for the Bucks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Give me more money, says Don Kohl.  Generate revenue for me, he says.  Here&#8217;s what he wants:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Kohl said the Bucks were interested in a new, eight-year lease with the Bradley Center &#8211; &#8220;A decent lease,&#8221; he said &#8211; that would include more revenue from concessions and suites and the possible addition of club seats.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>A new <b><i>decent lease<\/i><\/b>?  What exactly are the terms of the current lease?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Bucks, who <b>pay no rent<\/b> at the Bradley Center, <b>receive 27.5% of total gross receipts<\/b> from concessions other than programs, merchandise, and food and beverage sales in the suites. The team also gets <b>13.7% of gross revenue from food and beverage sales<\/b> from the suites at all Bradley Center events. In addition, the Bradley Center board paid <b>about $2.1 million<\/b> more in the fiscal year ending last June 30 to help the team financially.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That&#8217;s a johnking <i><b>lease<\/i><\/b>?  What can the Bradley Center  lease <i>me<\/i> for equivalent terms?  Lord, love a duck.<\/p>\n<ul><i>Then what?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;After that, the community has to decide what to do with the NBA in Milwaukee,&#8221; Kohl said. Right now, he added, &#8220;The community is not in the mood to talk about a new facility.&#8221;<\/i><\/ul>\n<p>Hey, brah, I will talk about it.  How about you use some of that wealth of yours to build your own heinzenjohnking arena, and then you can keep <i>all the concessions<\/i> and <i>all the total gross receipts<\/i> and you can rent it out to other production companies for when they want to bring Comcast on Ice to town.<\/p>\n<p>What, Milwaukee might rebel against your enlightened entrepreneurship and its demands upon the city&#8217;s treasury?  I mean, it&#8217;s been two years already since the taciturn community blew hundreds of millions of dollars building a free sports facility that stands empty <i>even when the Brewers are playing in it<\/i>.  Maybe you better get a cush little cooling-off period before you start sniffing around for a public-private &#8220;partnership&#8221; where you&#8217;re the comedian and it&#8217;s the straight man.<\/p>\n<p>I used to respect you, Senator, but no more.  I only wish I could vote against you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Buck You, Senator Kohl Millionaire Senator Herbert Kohl, D-Wisconsin, is starting to make &#8220;buy me an arena&#8221; noises in the city of Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports. Kohl owns the Milwaukee Bucks NBA team, which plays at the creaky 16-year-old Bradley Center: The Bradley Center opened in the fall of 1988 and is one of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=749"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22684,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749\/revisions\/22684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}