Junior Bridgeman Buys “Significant” Share of Milwaukee Bucks
Former player-turned-entrepreneur buys shares of several minority owners. Team valued at $4 billion.
Junior Bridgeman poses with his retired jersey after being announced as a new Milwaukee Bucks owner. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.
Former NBA player Junior Bridgeman is now a “significant minority owner” of the Milwaukee Bucks.
Bridgeman, introduced at a press conference Thursday, played 10 seasons for the team. Early September reports, based on league sources, said he was purchasing 10% of his former employer.
The sixth-man-turned-businessman joins Wesley Edens, Jimmy and Dee Haslam, Jamie Dinan, and Michael Fascitelli as prominent investors in the team.
During his team with the team in the 1980s, Bridgeman parlayed his on-court success in an investment in Wendy’s restaurants. After serving as a hands-on manager, he grew to become a prominent franchisee for the chain.
It was an idea at least one of his teammates was skeptical of. Marques Johnson, now television color commentator for the team, told Bridgeman that “no one would buy square hamburgers,” revealed event emcee Jim Paschke. “I don’t think he knew Dave Thomas at the time,” joked Bridgeman, 71, of Johnson’s knowledge of the late Wendy’s founder.
After one failed restaurant in Brooklyn, Bridgeman bought five Wendy’s in Milwaukee. And kept buying. He grew to acquire more than 450 restaurants, including locations for Wendy’s, Chili’s, TGI Friday’s and Fazoli’s. He’s since become a Coca-Cola bottler, acquiring the rights to multiple Midwest states and all of Canada, purchased Ebony and Jet magazines and now, he owns a piece of his employer where it all started.
Bridgeman is an NBA success story for a league that has, at times, faced publicity for excessive player spending and poor financial management. He made $3 million on the court, but earlier this year, was reported to possess a net worth of nearly $600 million.
“He’s about the most humble person I have ever met,” said Jimmy Haslam, who joined Bridgeman on stage Thursday.
“Junior Bridgeman’s character is the thing that completes this full circle,” said Paschke of Bridgeman’s cycle from player to businessman to team owner.
“I don’t think we can state enough what a big deal this is for the National Basketball Association and the community of Milwaukee to welcome Junior Bridgeman back as a substantial owner,” said Haslam.
“When this opportunity presented itself, it just seemed like a natural thing for me to get a chance to be part, not in just in heart, but physically of the organization going forward,” he said.
Bridgeman, who played for the team 1975 to 1984 and again from 1986 to 1987, said he has always felt part of the organization. His jersey, number two, is retired by the team and hangs in the rafters. He served as head of the player’s union from 1985 to 1988, during which he successfully led a charge to expand free agency.
He is a native of East Chicago, Indiana and played college basketball at the University of Louisville, where he still lives. But his children, he said, were born in Milwaukee and he’s always loved the city.
“It’s a place where you want to do well because everybody appreciates you when you do that,” he said before recounting stories of the team playing in what is now known as the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.
Based on a reported $4 billion valuation used for his purchase, Bridgeman’s share would cost $400 million. Prior reporting and discussions with sources familiar with the Bucks ownership structure indicates team owners do not often purchase their shares with cash, instead using debt instruments to finance the purchase. Reports from earlier this month also said that Bridgeman was given a “preferred limited partner discount” of 15%, knocking the actual price down to $340 million.
The league signed a new television and streaming rights deal in July, which is expected to send future sale prices higher. The Bucks value already spiked, with Marc Lasry‘s 2023 sale to Haslam valuing the team at $3.2 billion, $800 million less than the latest deal.
Bridgeman previously spoke to rookies as part of an NBA introduction process, discussing opportunities for success and potential pitfalls. “But it was difficult because they hadn’t started life in basketball yet,” said Bridgeman. He said he intends to continue that effort with his role with the Bucks. After walking off the stage at the Froedtert and Medical College of Wisconsin Sports Science Center, the team’s training facility, he was immediately spotted talking to Khris Middleton, Brook Lopez and Damian Lillard one-on-one. The announcement was made in front of dozens of Bucks employees and several players.
He credited former Bucks owner Jim Fitzgerald, who sold to Herb Kohl, with educating him on business.
Bridgeman said he considered purchasing the team in 2014, when Kohl sold the team to Lasry and Edens. He confirmed he even discussed the matter with Kohl. “It just didn’t feel right at the time,” he said Thursday.
Bridgeman’s investment, said Haslam, isn’t coming at the expense of any of the leading partners. “About a year ago, there were some owners that had small percentages, a half percent, 1%, that wanted to tender their stock,” said Haslam. The team bought their shares and sold them to Bridgeman. Haslam described his new partner as one of the “primary” owners.
Haslam first met Bridgeman years ago through a mutual friend in Louisville. They first connected over Haslam’s ownership of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns. He said Bridgeman joined him at a Browns game in Charlotte against the Carolina Panthers, which would place their meeting in 2014 or 2022. They had a mutual interest: they were both Wendy’s franchisees. Haslam’s Pilot Flying J truck stop chain, which he has since sold, also owned approximately 100 locations.
A representative of the team declined to comment on what minority owners are no longer part of the group. Past named shareholders included everyone from NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers to Palermo’s Pizza CEO Giacomo Falluca. Based on a valuation of $4 billion and an initial team purchase price of $550 million, a minority investor would have more than quadrupled their investment in a decade while getting to enjoy an NBA championship in 2021.
After the Bucks sold shares of the team in less than 1% increments, the NBA imposed a restriction that no shareholder could hold less than a 1% interest and that no more than 25 shareholders were allowed per team. At the time of the October 2014 rule change, the Bucks were reported to have 37 shareholders.
Besides Michael Jordan, who recently sold his majority stake in the Charlotte Hornets, Bridgeman’s investment is the largest ownership stake by a former NBA player in a team.
Lasry, the former Bucks owner, doesn’t appear likely to stay out of professional sports. He’s reported to be closing in on a purchase of the North Carolina Courage in the National Women’s Soccer League. The hedge fund leader raised a $445 million fund to invest in teams and other sports-related properties.
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