My dad took me to a bunch of Bucks games as a kid in the ‘80s, and I still attend maybe a game every season. I liked my "old friendly Bango" foam finger, and I played tennis with Bob Lanier's daughters in Mequon. I’ve always enjoyed the experience of going to a Bucks game, but I'm also an increasingly discriminating sports fan.

Even though I haven't paid for a ticket out of my own pocket since I saw Michael Jordan take on the Bucks as a Wizard a decade or so ago, I realize that NBA games are expensive to attend. In fact, the experience feels more and more like a ripoff these days, given that the Bucks play in the woefully dated, late-Soviet monolithic hockey arena called the BMO Harris Bradley Center.

Don't get me wrong, though. I'm a well-wisher of the franchise. I appreciate its history, from my neighbor Lanier to Paul Mokeski to Robert "Tractor" Traylor, and I'm happy when they succeed. But I don’t really consider myself a Bucks fan.

In fact, I don’t get that jazzed up about the NBA at all. I wish I did. My appreciation of hoops peaked in 1993, when my GW Colonials reached the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament, and it's settled out into a distant third place behind baseball and football on my personal sports depth chart. Yeah, I had fun watching the '90s Bulls, because athletes performing at the highest level are always interesting to me, no matter what the sport. I'm just far from passionate about basketball these days. That doesn't mean I don't have an opinion about it, however.

I understand the game reasonably well (thank you, Intellivision Basketball), and I understand a little about the business behind it, too, and I know that the existing facility where the Bucks call home is laughably inadequate. From the cheap seats to the luxury suites and boxes, there is nothing inviting about taking in a game in this big gray concrete octogon. Devoid of so much as a restaurant, it was obsolete before it was ever occupied, a half-baked attempt to attract an NHL franchise that never came. The Bradley Center is an exceptionally crappy arena, and it always has been.

While I only passively care about what happens on the court, I nonetheless passionately, urgently and desperately request Milwaukee and Wisconsin to get its act together and build the Bucks a new arena before it’s too late. Just like I preached in the mid ‘90s when the Brewers were semi-genuinely eying Charlotte as their new home, I’ll say it again: Build it now.

Look, I don’t especially care how much of this arena is publicly financed or privately paid for. These are big numbers, to be sure, but others can quibble over the final price tag: like when taxpayers footed the bill for Miller Park, it wasn’t a expense that we ever felt on a personal level.

I expect the same to be true with a new Bucks arena. Yes, part of me would like to see these funds go toward MPS or a fighting crime or fixing potholes, but that’s not how this stuff works. Budgets aren’t just buckets of money to be spread around to worthy causes. Sometimes government has to spend money to make money, and it happens all the time in the world of pro sports, often with fantastic and revitalizing results.

Here’s what I do know: losing a professional sports franchise would be a huge blow to a city that already suffers from a defeatist, self-loathing complex. As a business owner here for more than 17 years, I still see it every day, and no matter how much we fight it at OnMilwaukee.com, there’s a reluctance for change and progress that still befuddles me. What does it say for recruitment and retention of talent when Milwaukee can’t replace the oldest unrenovated arena in the NBA, when a huge portion will be paid for by both its former and current owners?

I’ll tell you what it says: Milwaukee isn’t a major league city, and Wisconsin without Milwaukee is North Dakota. That’s not good, sports fans and sports foes.

I know that none of us like paying for rich people to get what they want, whether it be for free or at a sweetheart reduced price. I don’t particularly care for it, either. I loved County Stadium dearly, and I cried at the last game. I wanted it to stay forever, but I also attended rallies to get Miller Park started. I lobbied for it personally and professionally. It wasn't because I wanted to give Bud Selig or his daughter my hard-earned money. It was because the Brewers needed to stay in Milwaukee.

In the late ‘90s, before I launched OnMilwaukee.com, I did a little PR consulting through an agency representing the Brewers. They wanted me to call bar owners in rural Wisconsin to see if the Miller Park deal, which was definitely railroaded through the state legislature (thank you again, George Petak), would affect their likelihood to send groups to Brewers games in the future.

Over the course of the next few weeks, every single bar owner told me they’d never go to another Brewers game again. They were spittin' mad, and some hung up on me.

We all know now that jaded Wisconsin sports fans, angry as they were at the time, didn’t carry through on their threats. All these years later, I don’t know many people who think that replacing County Stadium was a bad idea; the only objection I hear is that the location isn’t Downtown.

And now we’re talking about revitalizing a part of the city that may actually have tumbleweeds rolling through it. If the arena doesn’t get built, the Bucks will leave. Probably to Seattle, which badly and reasonably wants its Sonics back. And we’ll be stuck with two out-of-date arenas, buffeted by a mostly empty Journal building to the east, and basically, nothing to the north where the Park East Freeway once stood.

How would that look?

Obviously, unflattering. Here are three more things I know: I spend a fair amount of time in northern Wisconsin, and unlike the vibe there during the County Stadium malaise of the late ‘90s, I see lots of people wearing Brewers shirts and watching Brewers games. They travel and bring their wallets to Milwaukee, and they spend money. They flock to root for this well-funded team when it's good, and they put up with it when it's bad. And the tax base that is increased from within the city limits is substantial. The Brewers provide jobs and immeasurable income to the service and hospitality industry. This is one case in which the rising tide really lifts all boats.

Again, my personal enjoyment isn’t affected whether the Bucks stay or go. Will I spend a ton of time in the new entertainment district, sipping margaritas at a House of Blues on 4th St.? Probably not. But people will.

Trust me. Please.

If the Bucks get their arena, young professionals will continue to view Milwaukee as a city on the rise. Tourists will flock to this new destination. We will see new, tangible ways that this deal will pay for itself, but the intangibles will greatly outweigh them. And we’ll all be better for it in the long run.

Don’t be short sighted, Wisconsin. Build the new Bucks arena now.