Fiserv Forum

• 1. Introduction

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  Fiserv Forum sits in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin. On the 20th of July 2021, it hosted Game 6 of the NBA Finals. The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Phoenix Suns 105-98 that night, winning their first NBA championship in 50 years. Just three years earlier, no arena stood on that ground, and the Bucks had been told they might leave Milwaukee for good. Fiserv Forum is now home to the Bucks of the National Basketball Association and to Marquette University's Golden Eagles men's basketball team. How did a struggling franchise convince a skeptical city to help build it a new home, and what happened once the doors finally opened?

• 2. A Team On The Brink

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  By the time the Bucks left it in 2018, the BMO Harris Bradley Center ranked among the oldest arenas in the NBA. It had opened in 1988 as one of the league's premier venues. Only Madison Square Garden in New York and Oakland Arena in Oakland were older, and both had been substantially renovated. Oakland Arena was eventually replaced altogether by the new Chase Center in San Francisco, starting with the 2019-20 season. Jane Bradley Pettit and her husband Lloyd Pettit had donated the funds to build the Bradley Center. Their gift included no provision for long-term capital needs or annual operating costs. The building stayed self-sufficient, yet that arrangement left tenants like the Bucks at a financial disadvantage compared with other NBA teams.

  Herb Kohl, the Bucks' owner and a former United States senator, first proposed building a new downtown arena to replace the Bradley Center. The idea of a publicly funded arena drew considerable regional debate, but for years it went nowhere. In 2009, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle included $5 million in state bonding support in the capital budget to renovate the Bradley Center. The Bradley Center's board told state officials the building actually needed $40 million in renovations, and said they would raise the remaining $35 million themselves.

  On the 18th of September 2013, then deputy NBA commissioner Adam Silver toured the arena. He said it fell a few thousand square feet short of league standards. He also noted the building lacked numerous amenities. On the 16th of April 2014, Kohl announced he would sell the franchise to New York City hedge fund investors Marc Lasry and Wesley Edens. The deal committed $100 million each from Kohl and the new owners, $200 million total, toward a new arena. The NBA then refused to renew the Bucks' lease past the 2017-18 season. It warned that without a new arena underway by the start of 2018, the team would be sold and moved. The likely destinations were Las Vegas or Seattle.

  With the deadline set, Wisconsin lawmakers would soon have to decide whether public money should help pay for the team's replacement arena.

• 3. Winning The Public Vote

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  On the 15th of July 2015, the Wisconsin Senate voted 21-10 to approve funding for a new Milwaukee arena. On the 28th of July, the Wisconsin State Assembly approved the funding by a vote of 52-34. Governor Scott Walker signed the arena spending plan on the 12th of August 2015, at Wisconsin State Fair Park in West Allis. The Milwaukee city council followed on the 22nd of September, voting 12-3 in favor. On the 23rd of November, the city's Plan Commission gave unanimous conditional approval to the Bucks' development plans for land in the Park East Corridor. The commission also flagged possible parking problems in the area.

  Milwaukee sold the downtown land for the arena to the team for $1. Taxpayers ultimately contributed $250 million of the $524 million total construction cost. On the 13th of April 2016, the Bucks signed a 30-year lease to play in the new building. Marquette University agreed to lease the arena for its home games too, starting in 2018. Unlike its old arrangement at the Bradley Center, Marquette's Fiserv Forum lease runs only until the spring of 2025. That end date leaves Marquette the option of building its own smaller arena for lesser-attended games. The larger Big East Conference games and the Badgers-Golden Eagles rivalry matchup would still be held at Fiserv Forum.

  Construction on the new building had already begun in 2016, and its official start would soon be marked with a public celebration.

• 4. From Groundbreaking To Opening Night

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  The official groundbreaking took place during the second annual Bucks Block Party on the 18th of June 2016. Nearly a year later, on the 2nd of May 2017, Bucks president Peter Feigin said construction remained on schedule and on budget. He spoke from the site just after the first roof truss had been installed and bolted into place. The roof was officially topped off on the 24th of August 2017.

  Fiserv, a financial services technology company based in the Milwaukee suburb of Brookfield, agreed to a 25-year naming rights deal with the Bucks on the 26th of July 2018. The team stylizes the name as 'fiserv.forum' in its own branding. One month later, on the 26th of August 2018, Fiserv Forum officially opened with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the fourth annual Bucks Block Party. The first live event was a concert by The Killers with Violent Femmes on the 4th of September 2018.

  The Bucks played their first game in the building during the preseason against the Chicago Bulls on the 3rd of October 2018, winning 116-82. The regular-season home opener followed on the 19th of October, a 118-101 win over the Indiana Pacers.

  That opening week win over the Pacers was just the start of a season that would end with the best record the franchise had produced in decades.

• 5. Winning Ways

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  That first season, the Bucks finished with their first 60-win regular season since 1980-81. At Fiserv Forum alone they went 33-8, the second-best home record in the NBA that year. On the 14th of April 2019, the arena hosted its first NBA playoff game, Game 1 of the first round against the Detroit Pistons. The Bucks won 121-86.

  By the 22nd of December 2019, the Bucks had reeled off 50 consecutive sellouts at the Forum, the longest such streak in franchise history. That streak had begun on the 16th of November 2018, barely a month after the building opened.

  The Forum's attendance record fell twice within a week in February 2020. On the 22nd, 18,290 fans watched the Bucks beat the Philadelphia 76ers 119-98. Six days later, on the 28th, 18,412 fans saw the Bucks defeat the Oklahoma City Thunder 133-86, setting a new mark.

  On the 11th of July 2021, Fiserv Forum hosted its first NBA Finals game, Game 3 against the Phoenix Suns. The Bucks won that game 120-100. Across every season since the building opened, the team has compiled a regular-season record of 161-45 at the Forum, a winning percentage of .782.

  The Forum's success on the court soon made it a stage for events far beyond basketball, including presidential politics.

• 6. Beyond The Bucks

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  On the 11th of March 2019, organizers announced Fiserv Forum would host the 2020 Democratic National Convention, set for the 13th to the 16th of July that year. The coronavirus pandemic forced a postponement to the 17th to the 20th of August 2020. On the 24th of June 2020, organizers announced the convention would be downsized and moved to the nearby Wisconsin Center instead. From the 15th to the 18th of July 2024, Fiserv Forum hosted the Republican National Convention. On the 20th of August 2024, the arena hosted a campaign rally for Democratic nominees Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. The rally coincided with the Democratic National Convention at Chicago's United Center, roughly 80 miles away.

  Fiserv Forum held its first ice hockey games on the 28th of December 2021, with the inaugural Holiday Face-Off tournament. Its first National Hockey League preseason game followed on the 2nd of October 2022, when the Chicago Blackhawks played the Minnesota Wild as part of the Blackhawks' Home Away from Home series. The arena also carries on a Milwaukee tradition that predates it by decades. It hosts the Harlem Globetrotters' New Year's Eve game every year, with 2020 as the only exception.

  That same building had been designed years earlier with a very specific look in mind for the blocks growing up around it.

• 7. Designing The Deer District

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  On the 8th of April 2015, the Milwaukee Bucks released the first images and details of their vision for a new arena and entertainment district. The conceptual drawings showed a venue meant to anchor a mix of sports, entertainment, residential, and office development downtown. The chosen site sat between 4th Street and 6th Street, running from State Street to McKinley Avenue. It connected to Old World Third Street, Schlitz Park, The Brewery, the Milwaukee riverfront, Water Street, and the Wisconsin Center.

  Two Kansas City firms, Populous and HNTB, led the design team, working alongside the Milwaukee firm Eppstein Uhen Architects. The arena was planned as the centerpiece of a 'live block' zone, with public space surrounded by commercial and residential buildings. Early renderings showed a transparent facade and a curved roof and side. The shapes were meant to evoke the water forms of Lake Michigan and the Milwaukee River.

  'Herb Kohl Way' was unveiled on the plaza outside Fiserv Forum on opening day, honoring the former Bucks owner's role in bringing the arena to life. The plaza itself holds restaurants and a beer garden, where fans can gather year-round to watch sports on a large outdoor television. In May 2019, the Bucks named Fiserv Forum the central building of the surrounding 30-acre development, calling it the 'Deer District.'

  In February 2019, Johnson Controls unveiled a three-dimensional statue of its logo outside the arena. The statue can glow in multiple colors at night, and it turns green after every Bucks victory.

  Underneath all that symbolism, the building still had to work as a functioning arena, with a very specific number of seats to fill.

• 8. Built To Fit

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  Fiserv Forum holds 17,500 people overall, with fewer luxury suites but more club seating than the old Bradley Center offered. Basketball games fill 17,385 seats, ice hockey and indoor football configurations seat 15,178, and concerts can expand capacity to as many as 18,000.

  The building includes the layout and equipment for an NHL and NCAA-regulation ice hockey rink, along with ice shows such as Disney on Ice. That capability lets Fiserv Forum host the NCAA Frozen Four, a tournament the Bradley Center staged in 1993, 1997, and 2006. Even so, the American Hockey League's Milwaukee Admirals returned to the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena for the 2016-17 season rather than move in, since the team was never approached to play at Fiserv Forum. The Bucks are contractually bound not to recruit the Panther Arena's current tenants.

  At its opening, Fiserv Forum had the largest center-hung scoreboard in the NBA. It remains the third-newest arena in the league, trailing only the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles, which opened in 2024, and the Chase Center in San Francisco, which opened in 2019. Both of those newer arenas will eventually be joined by others built elsewhere, and Fiserv Forum's place near the top of that list is already starting to slide.