Sen. Melissa Agard on the Milwaukee Brewers Stadium Deal

Frederica Freyberg:

Governor Tony Evers is expected to sign the new Brewers stadium funding package, keeping the team in Milwaukee until 2050, or another 27 years. The slim-downed state contribution of an estimated nearly $366 million with the help of ticket surcharges helped push bipartisan approval of the plan. Still, there was also bipartisan opposition to signing on to such public funding of a major league ballpark. Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard helped negotiate the terms. She joins us now. Thanks very much for being here.

Melissa Agard:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

So why is it important to you to keep the Milwaukee Brewers in Milwaukee?

Melissa Agard:

Well, it’s important to me that the Milwaukee Brewers are here in Wisconsin and in Milwaukee. They’re part of our culture and as a state that is suffering from an awful lot of out migration of our young people, to me, it is vitally important that we think about the impacts of our culture leaving our state. Making sure that the Brewers stay here in Wisconsin, not only is good for the talking points and, you know, the vision of what Wisconsin is going to look like, but we also know that it’s good-paying jobs for the people that work at the stadium, that it provides additional revenue to counties around the state of Wisconsin because we were able to negotiate a decrease in sales tax fees that the state will collect from those communities, that we know that there are good jobs that will go into the renovations that need to happen at the stadium. Ultimately, it hits a lot of marks on how it is that Wisconsin will benefit from keeping the Brewers here.

Frederica Freyberg:

Was the threat of them leaving real?

Melissa Agard:

Absolutely, yes. It was made very clear to me that the Brewers had received multiple offers from other teams across the nation — or other cities across the nation and that, in January, they were going to be taking very seriously communicating with those locations.

Frederica Freyberg:

Would you have voted for it or urged your members to if in the end the bill did not reduce the state’s financial contribution?

Melissa Agard:

I believe that good work was done early on by Governor Tony Evers and my colleagues in the Assembly to get the bill to a better place than when it was first introduced, but I also was very confident that I was able to bring the voices of my colleagues and the constituents who we represent to the table in the Senate and make it even better, so I’m glad I didn’t have to make that decision. We were able to get the sales or the state revenue numbers down for the investment and also negotiate a seat at the table for the locals, the county and the city, and that was very important to me and my caucus as well.

Frederica Freyberg:

Why? Tell me about the importance of that.

Melissa Agard:

There’s an old saying. If you’re not at the table, you’re on the table, and knowing that the city of Milwaukee and the county of Milwaukee are two partners in delivering funds to keep the Brewers here in the state of Wisconsin, I think it’s vitally important that they also are sitting at the table in part of the negotiations.

Frederica Freyberg:

Still, as we mentioned, there was opposition to this from those saying that it’s a windfall for the Brewers, too much public funding for a profitable sports team. What’s your response to those concerns and criticisms?

Melissa Agard:

Certainly that is a moral issue nationwide when it comes to professional sports teams, but this is the trend and, you know, we can have those conversations and work with our professional sports teams and their associations to change that dynamic. But right now, if we want to keep the Brewers in Wisconsin, there had to be a state contribution. We do have a $7 billion surplus, and frankly, I would have preferred that we had gone down the path that was proposed by Governor Evers but the Republicans in the legislature didn’t like that. We were able to bring down contributions by tax dollars and take some of that pressure off, add more voice to the table for our local governments and also negotiate benefits for our counties across the state of Wisconsin through this deal. Is it exactly perfect? No. But I think it’s very important that we keep the Brewers here in the state of Wisconsin and I’m glad we were able to get there.

Frederica Freyberg:

What about other priorities of yours that could use an infusion of cash, particularly as we speak about that surplus, those that you’ve enumerated include education, the UW, increasing wages and childcare funding. This Brewers package was such a big deal and a lot of state money went toward it. What about those other priorities of yours?

Melissa Agard:

So, absolutely. We know that in the legislature, we can walk and chew gum at the same time, that we can work hard on multiple different policies: protecting our air and water, addressing PFAS contamination, addressing our childcare crisis here in the state of Wisconsin, funding our schools at all levels, whether it’s our K-12 schools, our university systems, unsticking the block that is preventing workers at our university systems from receiving the wages that they were promised through our budget. These are all priorities of Democrats in the legislature and we’re going to continue pushing for them but at the same time, we had another conversation that needed to happen and that was in regards to the Brewers.

Frederica Freyberg:

Just very briefly, with less than half a minute left, there was bipartisan negotiation here. Do you think that bodes well going forward?

Melissa Agard:

We’ve had bipartisan negotiations on a number of big bills this session, and I do maintain hope. That’s what people in Wisconsin want. They want us to work with each other.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Senator Agard, thanks very much.

Melissa Agard:

Thank you.