There are two things that were very important to the formation of the Milwaukee Bucks:

Marv Fishman’s love of Milwaukee and Vince Lombardi’s iron fist.

After the defections of the Milwaukee Hawks in 1955 and the Milwaukee Braves in 1965 Milwaukee was left without a big league team.  This didn’t sit well with Fishman.  He knew Milwaukee was a big league town with big league fans.  Milwaukee represented themselves well with a baseball exhibition in 1967 drawing over 50,000 fans.  Fishman thought he might have a real shot of landing an AFL team and then landing the NFL when the leagues eventually merged.

But Vince Lombardi had other ideas. (more…)