County Voters Oppose Brewers Bailout

American Family Field. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

A new poll has bad news for the Milwaukee Brewers. Most county residents don’t support using tax dollars to support the team.

The survey, done by Public Policy Polling, asked if respondents “support or oppose tax money being used to pay for improvements to the Brewers baseball stadium,” and only 25% supported it, with 56% opposed, and 19% undecided.

When asked if they would be more likely to support tax dollars for the stadium improvements if not doing so would mean the team might leave Milwaukee for other cities, there was little change in their opinion: just 26% supported a subsidy, with 48% opposed and 26% undecided.

To measure the party affiliation of respondents, the poll, commissioned by the nonprofit group, Wisconsin Works, asked who they voted for in the 2020 election: 66% voted for Joe Biden, 26% voted for Donald Trump and 8% either voted for someone else or didn’t vote. (Biden had 69% of the vote in the election and Trump had 29%.)

“In 2023 it’s very hard to get a consensus on any policy issue,” said Daniel Adams, a Milwaukee attorney who serves as director of Milwaukee Works. “Everything usually breaks down GOP versus Dems, and this poll shows a consensus on the issue of a stadium subsidy, and the taxpayers are saying loud and clear we don’t want to pay for this.”

There was one bit of good news for the Brewers in the poll: when asked if they would support a subsidy “if the tax money came from the state of Wisconsin overall rather than just Milwaukee County,” 59% said they’d be more likely to support such a plan, 29% said it wouldn’t make a difference and 10% said they’d be less likely to support it.

The original proposal to pay for stadium improvements, pushed by Gov. Tony Evers, did just that, providing $290 million in state funding. But Republicans. led by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, objected to that plan. It’s a safe bet that the majority of state voters would oppose a stadium subsidy (a majority did so in the 1990s when there was a state referendum on the issue) and would likely be more favorable to a subsidy if more of it is paid by Milwaukee taxpayers.

Republicans have surely not forgotten that state Sen. George Petak of Racine was recalled from office in 1996 after supporting the Brewers stadium subsidy, with most of the money coming from a 0.1% sales tax for the five-county metro area, including Milwaukee, Waukesha, Washington, Ozaukee and Racine counties. Their current proposal instead includes $135 million in local funding only from the city and county of Milwaukee and $463 million from the state which is supposed to be recouped through income taxes paid by Milwaukee Brewers players and personnel. Another $100 million would come from an increase in the rent the team pays for the stadium.

The total amount is much higher because it is for 27 years, versus the 13 years under Evers’ plan. So the $135 million paid by the city and county of Milwaukee would amount to $5 million per year.

The rationale for this was explained by Metropolitan Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce President Tim Sheehy, a proponent of the Brewer’s bailout. “From what I understand, the prior 0.5% sales tax levied by the county brought in $1M per year from ballpark spending,” he told Urban Milwaukee. “With the new 0.9% that could exceed $2 M per year going forward. The City will now collect 2%, unsure as to what that would collect, but the ballpark is in the city, so its possible the city sales tax revenue from ballpark activities could generate $3-4M per year.”

If it’s true that the $5 million equals the added sales tax paid by the team that would certainly help the deal go down easier than Sheehy’s past statement that “we’re going to have to continue to make that kind of investment because it never ends.”

Voters typically oppose subsides of any sport teams, but it doesn’t help that baseball is far less popular than football, has the oldest fans among the major sports and has seen TV viewership for its games plummet by 66% since 1992. Major League Baseball is touting a 9.2% increase in attendance through mid-August of this year, but that comes after a steady decline over the previous 10 years.

Certainly local officials are not excited about subsidizing the Brewers. The Milwaukee County Board voted unanimously to oppose any Brewers subsidy,. And Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley signed the resolution. As for the city, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson released a statement saying “We currently have no available resources that could be directed to stadium improvements,” and a statement by five Milwaukee aldermen declared that “We believe firmly that NOT A DIME of the funding should be footed by City of Milwaukee taxpayers.”

Since the passage of a new city sales tax and higher county sales tax both Crowley and Johnson have been more open to or at least haven’t closed the door to discussing a Brewers bailout. The timing of this poll by Wisconsin Works might have that in mind. “My organization is interested in shedding light on important, but underreported, public policy issues,“ particular those that pit special interests against the general populace, Adams noted.

And with overwhelming voter opposition to a subsidy that would primarily benefit a billionaire owner, Mark Attanasio, and the team’s many millionaire ballplayers, this would seem to be exactly the kind of situation Adams has described. The poll’s results will further complicate what is already a very tough deal to sell.