Can Brewers stadium deal take notes from La Crosse and the Loggers?

2023-08-30

Dan Kapanke, co-owner of the La Crosse Loggers, and Adam Hoffer, Tax Foundation director, joined to talk about the Milwaukee Brewers stadium funding situation. The Brewers, which lease the stadium essentially from the state, and the Wisconsin Legislature are negotiating stadium upgrades that are hovering between $290-$400 million. Kapanke is part of a coalition of business owners promoting keeping the Brewers in Milwaukee, while Hoffer taught sports business at UW-La Crosse for a decade. We d...

Dan Kapanke, co-owner of the La Crosse Loggers, and Adam Hoffer, Tax Foundation director, joined to talk about the Milwaukee Brewers stadium funding situation.

The Brewers, which lease the stadium essentially from the state, and the Wisconsin Legislature are negotiating stadium upgrades that are hovering between $290-$400 million.

Kapanke is part of a coalition of business owners promoting keeping the Brewers in Milwaukee, while Hoffer taught sports business at UW-La Crosse for a decade.

We discuss whether this debate is political, if tax money to renovate the stadium is good economically — or should we let the rich owners renovate the stadium? — and how the Loggers and the city of La Crosse have worked out a similar deal.

The Brewers are also spending over $500,000 lobbying the Legislature to get a deal down, so we dissect what that might look like.

I also threw three half-baked ideas at the two, including selling the stadium to the Brewers for $1 and building a new stadium altogether because of its awkward current location and the price tag to renovate.

Wisconsin continues to sit on $4 billion in budget surplus going on 19 months. With that, one more half-baked idea I threw out there was how — with that surplus — the state missed out on buying the Milwaukee Bucks.

The Bucks went through a similar fight back in 2015 to fund a new arena and won, but their situation is a bit different because the team owns the arena. The team just sold to the Cleveland Browns owners, who bought a 25% majority stake in the team, valued now at $3.5 billion.

STORY LINKS
Politcaly motivated?
https://wktysports.com/2023/03/09/wisconsin-republican-says-brewers-stadium-funding-plan-dead/

Brewers lobbying state Legislature
https://wktysports.com/2023/08/08/brewers-spent-600k-in-2023-lobbying-for-hundreds-of-millions-in-public-funds-for-stadium-renovations/

Owner optimistic a deal can be reached
https://wktysports.com/2023/08/28/brewers-principal-owner-is-optimistic-about-stadium-negotiations-wants-to-keep-team-in-milwaukee/

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