MILWAUKEE — Junior Bridgeman played for the Milwaukee Bucks long enough to retire as the team leader in games played and performed well enough that his jersey hangs from the Fiserv Forum rafters.
Now the basketball player-turned-entrepreneur has purchased a stake in the team.
The Bucks announced Bridgeman’s purchase in a news conference that included co-owner Jimmy Haslam, coach Doc Rivers, general manager Jon Horst and most of the team’s current players. Bridgeman said after the news conference he has a 10% stake in the team.
“The opportunity to get back involved with the team in a different way and take advantage of it was something that was kind of a dream,” Bridgeman said.
Bridgeman’s 711 career games played for Milwaukee ranks him third in franchise history, behind only current Bucks Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton. His No. 2 jersey was retired by the Bucks in 1988.
He now joins a Bucks ownership group that includes Haslam and his wife Dee, Wes Edens, Jamie Dinan and Mike Fascitelli. Haslam praised the move by citing Bridgeman’s longstanding connections to Milwaukee and his success as a player and businessman as well as his character.
“If you said, ‘All right, let’s find somebody to add as a partner,’ he’s No. 1,” Haslam said. “And I can’t think who would be No. 2.”
Bridgeman’s ties to Milwaukee go back half a century.
After the Los Angeles Lakers selected Bridgeman out of Louisville with the eighth pick in the 1975 draft, they sent him to Milwaukee as part of the blockbuster trade that brought Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to the West Coast.
Bridgeman, 71, played for the Bucks from 1975-84 and then spent two years with the Los Angeles Clippers before coming back to Milwaukee for his final NBA season in 1986-87. He ranks seventh in Bucks history in field goals made (4,142), ninth in points (9,892) and 10th in minutes (18,054).
Bridgeman has been even more successful off the floor.
After his playing career, Bridgeman began investing in restaurants and eventually became owner and CEO of Bridgeman Foods, which operated more than 450 Wendy’s and Chili’s restaurants in 20 states until 2016. He also has been an independent bottler for Coca-Cola. His family owns Ebony and Jet magazines.
Bridgeman’s success as a player and as a businessman made him attractive to NBA teams seeking people to purchase stakes in their team.
“I’d gotten at least three calls in the last three months from people wanting to know if (I’d) get involved with a team,” Bridgeman said. “I said, ‘I appreciate the opportunity, but no,’ because there’s no real connection. I know Boston’s for sale, and as many knock-down, drag-out battles as we had with Boston, I couldn’t see being an owner of the Boston Celtics, as great as they are. It had to mean more than just investing. It had to have some kind of heartfelt connection.”
The Bucks offered that connection.
“When you played here and you became a part of the Bucks organization, even when you left, you never felt like you were not a part of the organization,” Bridgeman said.
Bridgeman said he even had conversations with former Sen. Herb Kohl when he put the Bucks up for sale a decade ago.
“I talked to Sen. Kohl back then,” Bridgeman said. “It just didn’t feel right at that time. Now it does.”
Edens and Marc Lasry, both New York investment firm executives, bought the Bucks from Kohl for about $550 million in 2014 with pledges to keep the team in Milwaukee. Haslam bought Lasry’s 25% stake in the team last year.
Haslam said over the last year, a number of people who owned small percentages of the Bucks - a half-percent or 1% - wanted to tender their stocks. Those shares were purchased and then re-sold to Bridgeman.
Bridgeman hopes his new role helps him advise players on the right steps to take and the pitfalls they should avoid as they prepare for life after basketball. He’s had those types of discussions with players in the past.
“Nobody wants to see guys not be successful, or as successful as they could be,” Bridgeman said. “Maybe one day, they’ll be sitting up here, not being a 10% (owner) but buying the whole Milwaukee Bucks franchise. You never know.”
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