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First year of Fiserv Forum
A NEW GATHERING PLACE FOR MILWAUKEE
// By Chris Jenkins, Director of Communications, MMAC
Ernie Johnson is originally from Milwaukee, but the host of TNT’s “Inside the NBA” show swears he’s not being a homer when asked to describe the atmosphere he and his colleagues experienced outside Fiserv Forum during the Milwaukee Bucks’ playoff games.
“We walked away from that first show, and we were like, ‘Man, this was the best setting for a pregame show out in the people that we’ve ever had,’” Johnson said.
The new arena and its adjacent “Deer District” entertainment complex exceeded expectations throughout the 2018-19 debut season, earning rave national reviews and packing in big crowds. Even if the arena’s story was just about basketball, it would have been a resounding success: The Bucks, once an afterthought on the NBA’s global stage, had the best record in the NBA, the league's Most Valuable Player in Giannis Antetokounmpo and went farther in the playoffs than they had in nearly two decades. Fiserv’s other main tenant, the Marquette Golden Eagles, went 16-3 at home, had a national player of the year candidate in Markus Howard and were ranked as high as No. 10 in the nation.
But the extent of Fiserv’s first-year success traveled well beyond the court. It became a new gathering place in downtown Milwaukee, drawing people together and focusing their energy – not just on basketball, but for concerts and community events. According to Bucks president Peter Feigin, the arena hosted a total of 150 events reaching 1.5 million people.
TNT stars Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, Kenny Smith and Johnson clearly were having a blast during the playoffs, taking selfies and leading the crowd in chants during breaks from the show. Johnson would go out on stage an hour early to greet the crowd, and even took the TNT TV crew to his old neighborhood for a visit.
“The Milwaukee vibe was great,” Johnson says. “And obviously a big part of that is you’re starved for that kind of setting. For the Milwaukee fans, you’re starved for that kind of a scenario where after being knocked out of the playoffs for so many years. You’re finally there after 18 years, and you’ve got this great new building and everything’s there. It’s perfect.”
Not bad for a team that went from an uncertain future to “own the future,” the team’s motto during the arena project.
“I think it was beyond expectations,” Feigin said. “All of us were so thrilled. We really tried to grasp the reality of it and build on it. (Event) debriefs were so interesting. How do we improve on it? We didn’t think 8,000 people would come out in the rain for an away playoff game. We obviously feel this incredible need and want for a meeting place.”
RAVE REVIEWS
The proposal provided $250 million in public money, along with $150 million from the Bucks’ ownership group and a $100 million contribution from former team owner and retired U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl. In an
April 2015 Marquette Law School Poll of Wisconsin voters, 79 percent opposed the plan and 17 percent supported it.
Proponents made the case that the state would lose more in tax revenue if the Bucks left for another city than the state would spend to help build the arena, and the measure eventually passed. And once the doors opened, the narrative changed.
With the Bucks and Golden Eagles both playing well and the new arena packing in fans of both teams, Milwaukee’s hoops resurgence earned national notice. A Los Angeles Times headline in December read, “One of NBA's coldest cities is becoming a hot spot.”
The story quoted Golden State Warriors forward Kevon Looney, a native of Milwaukee: “All summer, all
// PETER FEIGIN, Milwaukee Bucks
last year, all anybody would talk about was the new arena, what it’s doing for the city. The Bucks, I can see a difference. …You can tell.’”
Chicago Tribune sports writer Teddy Greenstein put it more succinctly during a January post to his Twitter account, saying, “Fiserv Forum is spectacular, easily the best NBA arena.”
The Bucks drew 17,602 fans per game in the 2018-19 season, up from 16,714 in the previous season. Marquette averaged 15,611 fans per game in Fiserv’s first year after drawing 12,323 per game in 2017-18.
The enthusiastic reception for Fiserv dulled much of the initial criticism.
“There will always be skeptics,” Feigin said. “For us, we want the proof to be in results. It’s all about the real numbers, it’s all about the growth.”
PROMOTING DIVERSITY
As swarms of fans gathered outside Fiserv Forum during the playoffs, even to watch away games on huge screens in the Deer District, it wasn’t just about how many people showed up – it was who showed up. The young, diverse crowds were a breath of fresh air for Milwaukee as the region grapples with issues of segregation and economic disparity.
As Dwayne Burtin, the deputy editor for digital at the community-focused Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, wrote: “The Deer District was bustling with activity and the large crowds were reflective of the diversity that can be found in our great city — which usually may be harder to spot. Can the Bucks, and other local sports teams, be a catalyst in the city’s progression? It seems as if they can. Although they were ousted from the playoffs after losing to the Toronto Raptors in six games, the Bucks rallied together fans of all ages, races and backgrounds, and they energized the spirit of our city.”
Feigin notes proudly that Bucks crowds – inside and outside the arena – are one of the true “melting pot” environments to be found in Milwaukee. Sports can’t solve racial issues, of course, but they can play a role.
“The more time people spend together, the more time a diverse community interacts together, it builds toward what we look for – a diverse, dynamic city,” Feigin said.
As an organization, the Bucks are showing a willingness to lean in to challenging racial issues. Feigin and former Bucks player Malcolm Brogdon both made headlines for comments about the level of segregation they’ve seen in Milwaukee. And the team responded strongly when player Sterling Brown was tased by police, which led to the firing of one officer and a civil lawsuit against the city.
“I think our owners take it seriously,” Feigin said. “We take it seriously as an organization. When we interview people and when we recruit people, we talk about the importance of what it means to be a citizen, what it means to be a member of the community. Do people gravitate to that? Do they want that? Because it’s what we’re trying to build.”
Marquette University also used Fiserv as a platform to take on challenging social issues. One of the first events the arena hosted was a national conference on race and trauma. The conference was an offshoot of SWIM (Scaling Wellness In Milwaukee), a community traumainformed care initiative led by Marquette president Mike Lovell and his wife,
“The Fiserv Forum quickly became much more than a great venue for basketball games. We saw the immediate power of the Forum when it hosted a Community Gathering to kick off our Race and Trauma Conference,” Lovell said. “Fiserv was the ideal setting to encourage nearly 1,500 people from our community to convene and be part of a challenging conversation about the future of Milwaukee.”
WHAT’S NEXT?
After a debut season that included everything from playoff basketball to community events and a Christkindlmarket, what will Fiserv and the Deer District do for an encore? The arena will be a central focus of the Democratic National Convention in 2020, of course, but the team hopes to host more events throughout the year.
“For us, now it’s the hard work of operations,” Feigin says. “How do we continue to build the content and have as many event days as we possibly can fathom – which I think is double what we’re probably doing now when we get to the future. How do we activate the neighborhood? How do we give back? And how do we continue to energize the city through our little 30-acre district?” p
