The Business of Footy is Booming.
The world’s best football players are going wherever they can (i.e. to one of those clubs owned by middle eastern monarchies) to rake in millions every single month. Humongous deals with toxic gambling companies are buoying the rest. And while the “world’s game” has long been an afterthought on this side of the Atlantic, there’s a change afoot. The U.S. Men’s National Team just bossed CONCACAF’s Nations League tournament, shutting out both Mexico and Canada.
Not to be outdone, Milwaukee is getting its very own second-rate professional team “starting in 2025.”
Buzz over the team has been building since last spring, when Kacmarcik Enterprises and Bear Development announced their purchase of an 11-acre parcel of land owned by Marquette University, which is to become the hub of a new soccer-oriented entertainment district. In recent months, the excitement has taken the form of an online “tournament” to crowdsource the team’s name. Voting opens soon for the top 16 contenders. In just a couple weeks, we will know whether the Milwaukee Chill or the Milwaukee Tall Boys or some other worthy contender for team nickname will be going toe-to-toe with the Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC, the Tampa Bay Rowdies and the rest of the United Soccer League Championship.
But even at this nascent naming stage, and even for a second-rate professional soccer team that will probably slot ahead of the Milwaukee Milkmen and behind the Milwaukee Admirals in terms of popularity, the conversation surrounding the team’s proposed stadium, which is being branded as “Iron District MKE,” appears dead on arrival. The project has been pitched at $45 million, and given the state’s stranglehold on Milwaukee’s budget, this is not a good time for public funding.
Bear Development’s primary funding options took a significant hit on June 2 when negotiations between Governor Tony Evers and State Republicans sacrificed what had been allocated to the project. And again, just this past Wednesday, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos made it clear that recent conversations around public funding for American Family Field renovations also remain stalled.
The economics of sport are so overbearing that before a team even has a name, the gut response is “will it be worth it?” Or “that would be nice, but I’m not paying.” And that sadly feels obvious here Just another set of uberwealthy team owners and local politicians collaborating to take back some of the scraps of public money that fall to us from the table to fund their own private sports venues is indeed tough to swallow.
But society is more than a series of economic transactions. Reducing our discussion about sports into bloodless decisions about worth and value and revenue unduly deflates any excitement over the abstract benefits of sports in communities, like camaraderie, conversation, and public health – especially hyperlocal teams like this one, which flesh out the “middle class” of sports. Turning the team into a line item in a budget also drags those who don’t care about the sport into the broader political discussion. By paving over these benefits to make way for toxic traffic jams stuffed with vehicles for sophistry, everybody’s emotional and mental stamina meters are sapped a bit more. But this is what sports have become in a world where the bonds of community must always take a back seat to the probabilities of profit. Just ask an Oakland A’s fan.
Under such conditions, success in the community and in the USL for the FC Cheeseheaders will only bloom against all odds. Only if the Lake Effect recruits a balance of competitive talent and character, players interested in visiting schools and advocating progressive answers to local questions, will they flourish on and off the field. Only if the Milwaukee Cheese get creative, (maybe Potowatomi would contribute if they were granted favorable gambling and naming rights?) will the players have a field worth playing on. And only if the working class fanbase can eventually feel OK with the economics surrounding the team and the city, will the Cream City win and lose as a community, on and off the field.
