“When a basketball player or football or baseball player from another team plays in Wisconsin, that one game's salary, they pay Wisconsin income tax on it. ... So if for some reason we do not have the Brewers in Wisconsin all of those player salaries that generate dollars for the State of Wisconsin go away."
Many people perceive professional sports teams as beneficial for the local economy and essential to an area's civic identity. Professional sports teams have been credited with providing jobs and injecting millions of dollars into local economies. The presence of a professional sports franchise from one of the four major sports is often regarded as a prerequisite to becoming a "big league" city or state. As Wisconsin state representative Marlin Schneider joked in 1995, "Without the Milwaukee Brewers, Milwaukee Bucks, and Green Bay Packers, [Wisconsin] ain't nothing but another Nebraska." With so much money and status on the line, professional sports teams have become highly sought after, and their movements from city to city have led to public outrage, lawsuits, and legislative proposals. The owners of professional sports teams have been able to obtain generous deals from city and state officials by threatening to move their franchises. If the owners do not receive the support they seek, they move their team to a more accommodating city. Typical benefits include the use of sports facilities at below-market rents and taxpayer funding for the construction and maintenance of new facilities. Most of the funding comes from the team's home state, but some funding comes from the federal government.