Tonight we learn whether baseball in Waukesha is an idea that just won’t die, like light rail in Milwaukee. The Waukesha Common Council meets tonight at 6:30pm to discuss a proposed baseball stadium at the site of Frame Park, built to support an “independent league” franchise owned and operated by investors from Joliet, IL.
If the aldermen decide to further study the proposal, the owners of the Northern League Joliet Jackhammers hope to bring the aldermen to Joliet, IL to be wined and dined and treated to a good time while they make their pitch for a mega-million stadium that will destroy Frame Park, ruin the quality of life for the surrounding neighborhood, and present taxpayers with a bill for over $20 million dollars, all for almost no benefit to the city of Waukesha and Southeastern Wisconsin.
In Joliet, the stadium cost $27 million, with the city footing the entire bill.
Unlike Joliet, Waukesha is already suffering budget strains and the taxpayers are not in mood to give more.
Southeastern Wisconsin is already saturated with competing interests pursuing the sports entertainment dollar: The Milwaukee Brewers, The Milwaukee Bucks, division 1 basketball at UW-Milwaukee and Marquette University, The Milwaukee Admirals, The Milwaukee Wave, even a division I baseball team at UW-Milwaukee that is a higher caliber of play than the proposed Northern League franchise. The Milwaukee Wave couldn’t even sell out their home game in the league championship. UW-Milwaukee and Marquette University’s basketball teams struggle to get fans to attend their games despite recent successes. The Milwaukee Admirals is a sports franchise living on the edge hoping new ownership can revitalize the team. And of course the Milwaukee Bucks and Brewers don’t sell out every game either.
Granted, none of these teams has the city of Waukesha as part of its name. But this isn’t the suburbs of Chicago where it takes an hour minimum to drive from one suburb to another. Waukesha is minutes away from all of these sports entities and all of them (except the Milwaukee Bucks) make an effort to be relatively affordable. Yes that includes the Milwaukee Brewers, who, with all of its ticket and food specials might as well call themselves the Milwaukee Mustangs.
Remember the Milwaukee Mustangs, the Arena football team? They were caught in the squeeze for the sports entertainment dollar and they folded. They had no football competition once the Packers moved all their games to Green Bay, they heavily ran promotions practically giving their tickets away, but despite the football-crazed nature of the sports dollar spender in this area they couldn’t keep themselves economically viable.
The Milwaukee Mustangs went the way of minor league baseball in Beloit and Kenosha. The proposed Waukesha baseball franchise isn’t even minor-league. To expect it to support a fan base in this area is sheer folly.
So when the owners of the Jackhammers offer to load the Aldermen on a coach line bus and whisk them off to the paradise of Joliet, IL, we should expect our aldermen to say, “Hell no, we won’t go.”
