Lasry: Arena financing needs to be partnership

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Marc Lasry, co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, said this morning that the City of Milwaukee will be key to financing a new arena downtown.

But Lasry, who was interviewed at the Bloomberg Sports Business Summit in New York, hedged on whether he and co-owner Wes Edens would be willing to contribute more than the $100 million they have pledged for the new arena.

โ€œI think weโ€™re going to see how weโ€™re going to develop that,โ€ he said. โ€œI think itโ€™s got to be a partnership, and weโ€™ve got to do this with the city, so I think over time that weโ€™ll be able to do this.โ€

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The new owners do plan to invest in the team to make it winning venture, Lasry said.

โ€œWe bought the team, weโ€™re pretty competitive guys, weโ€™d like to win an NBA championship,โ€ Lasry said. โ€œI think youโ€™ll see us putting money into the team. I think when you look at this, youโ€™re really a steward of an asset. Iโ€™d love to tell you we own it. I think, really, the city owns the team. The fans own the team. Weโ€™re the ones who are sort of managing it for this period of time, and I think we have the responsibility to do the best we can.

โ€œThe biggest thing is you want to sort of create a winning culture, and I donโ€™t think Milwaukee or the Bucks have had that, so weโ€™re going to be doing that.โ€

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Lasry feels he and Edens paid a fair price at $550 million for the Bucks, since the LA Clippers sold for $2 billion a few weeks later.

And he and Edens specifically chose the Bucks as their target for ownership, he said.

โ€œWeโ€™re thrilled. I had always been a huge Milwaukee Bucks fan, Lew Alcindorโ€”I think for us it was great. I had no interest in buying a team in LA,โ€ Lasry said.

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It could take three to five years to turn the Bucks around, he said.

โ€œI think right now we have the best team in the NBA thatโ€™s under 23,โ€ Lasry said.

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