WHAT IF? Of the Badgers, Brewers, Bucks and Packers, which team HAS to stay? Who ya got?
Vote Here:
If you could only keep one?
— Rudy L.B. (author) (@authorrudylb) July 27, 2023
Ideas come from the strangest moments and oddest circumstances in our lives, right? I was sitting on a plane, waiting to get off after a bumpy landing (you know the kind, where the plane has that little skip and the brakes slam on hard) and I kept watching the family in front of me with four kids. They were all being pretty snotty and were misbehaving, as they had for most of the second half of the flight. There wasn’t a single kid in their seat. Two of them were running in the aisle, screaming and one was just being “bad”. Undisciplined. “Kid drunk”. All this was happening as we were landing!
The Mom and the Dad looked done. At one point I’m pretty sure the Mom even tried to pretend like she was sleeping. In this “fight or flight” scenario she chose “flight”. The Dad must have fixed eight different pairs of headphones. He was hanging in there the best he could but it was a lot. It had only been a two hour flight.
Me, of course, sitting there, waiting to get off the plane, wondered, “I wonder which one of their four kids did they like best? Who are they keeping?”
Messed up? I know! Funny though, OF COURSE.
So let’s, in the doldrum part of the sports season as we await NFL football, NBA basketball, college fall sports and hopefully Brewer playoff baseball, ask this simple question:
If you could only keep ONE of these four: Brewers, Badgers, Bucks, or Packers, who are you keeping? (Please make your voice heard on our Twitter Poll.)
Pick your favourite kid. Who do we like the best? (Not who do we think is the best?) When you only get to be a fan of one of the four major sports outlets in the state, who is the best? Who do we have to keep?
A Case for the Badgers
Well, with this vote you get ALL the stuff, right? Badger NCAA basketball, the National Championship Volleyball team, a really amazing cross-country running program and Badger football. You get to see how all of these Luke Fickell stuff ends up. You get to follow along as new kids jump in and out and recruits provide constant news and gossip. (Just ask Jarrett.)
So with this vote you get some variety. With the new NIL agreement you can almost make the argument these guys are the “new professionals”. If they were the only ones to watch in the state you’d have to think there would be more information on that and who is actually getting paid what?
So many Badger programs (football and basketball included) always seem to be good but seemingly never great so you will get perpetual “goodness” here. But good, of course, is the enemy of great. But good is better than nothing.
Plus you get a free tour from Scary Alvarez.
Related: Luke Fickell speaks
A Case for the Bucks
Well, Giannis, right? I mean you get to watch “Rise” ten million times? And like the Badgers you will get perpetual “goodness”. As a franchise the Bucks are .527% or 2,341-2,012 (The Bucks win more than they lose.) If the Bucks lose him this case gets tougher to make.
Related: Bucks are “#2”
But seriously, this team has an NBA Championship! We’ve had watch parties this summer trying to replicate the magic where people all get together and watch the Bucks win it all! They feel like the team that is the closest to being able to win a league-wide championship again. And they are, generally speaking, a lock to win 50 plus games and win the Central. (This is an advantage it seems all of the participants share- an “easier” path to a division title.) They are well run. They have rich owners. With the vote you get unlimited beer at Good Company in the Deer District.
I know my favourite piece for Wi Sports Heroics was this one here.
Related: Giannis is Wisconsin’s Greatest Living Athlete
Here is another classic from the owner.
The NBA tends to have plenty of action and drama over an 82 game season. I know for my writing I was really inspired to think about Giannis during all of the Ja Morant drama. My piece on Giannis above really came down to one simple thought: “Could you even imagine Giannis out at a club at 2am with a gun?”
Bucks games can feel expensive but that has to all be part of it. You get what you pay for, right? And the NBA can feel pretty light-hearted.
For so many Bucks fans losing to the Heat in round one really, really hurt. That just proves it matters.
Plus, a vote for the Bucks gets you unlimited commentary from Steve “Sparky” Pfifer and Nathan Marzion.
A Case for the Brewers
Tailgating! Brewer games are amazing before and after. Lots of good food, outside summer weather and beer.
The Brewers are well run (David Stearns now is gone but the ship seems to be good) and they also have an affluent owner. Tickets are the most reasonable here ($7- for real!) and you would suspect it would go up if they were the ONLY team left in Wisconsin.
They don’t have the same, strong winning percentage as the other options (4,144-4,419) or a winning percentage of .484%. But that makes them “lovable losers”.
Yelich is a former MVP. Burnes is a CY Young award winner. The Crew always seems to make the playoffs and like the Bucks, play in a division where you can really beat up on some bad teams.
I wrote earlier this year about how their offense is historically bad, yet they keep winning.
That alone might be worth some voting consideration.
The Brewers Raptor account is a great follow
(You can get the above hoodie at our store here.)
A Case for the Pack
The Packers are big business for Wisconsin. When they are forced to play in London it has an economic impact that gets into the hundreds of billions. (I’m joking here. But the money thing is no joke.)
Well, Charlie Berns comes along with a Packer vote here, along with all the great music associated with the Packers. Tunes like “The Bears still Suck”, “Green and Yellow” and “I’m a Cheesehead Baby”.
Going to a Packer game is supremely awesome! The culture of alumni players is awesome. The owner of Wi Sports Heroics wrote about it here.
They are also a well-run organization. They play in the Central, a division where 10-7 will almost always fetch a division title. If they can pull this off they will have had like 30+ years of amazing quarterback play. We all should root for Jordan Love!
And, of course, the history. The Packer-Sunday is ingrained in the Wisconsin experience.
One of my favoirte pieces I’ve written is here.
Related: The Packers were the first to do this…
A Case For the Milkmen
What can I say? I like the Milkmen!
I have had some of my most enjoyable “sports watching experiences” at Milkmen games.
Did you know every Milkmen jersey sold has the #42 to honor Jackie Robinson? How cool!
The Final Verdict
The twitter poll was the easiest and fastest way to collect some real time data on this. And if nothing else it is a fun hypothetical to chat about.
So, on that plane thankfully the parents got to keep all of the kids. Nobody got left behind. For those larger families out there I see you and feel you. Everything ends up all right; the kids get older and hopefully those plane rides get easier.
In Wisconsin sports it is the same: nobody gets left behind. It is what makes Wisconsin sports and Wisconsin sports fans so great!
I’m picking the Bucks as my team to keep. My vote is based solely on childhood memories and my personal preferences towards basketball. That is all the justification you need for a silly “thought experiment”. Leave a comment below or better yet, leave three teams behind.
Additional Author’s Notes
- Sorry, I used way too many parentheses in this article. ( )
- This is my 200th article for the Wisconsin Sports Heroics outfit. I started writing for them and then just kinda stopped; then jumped back in face first and I always enjoy it. When we are posting stuff (we are, in fact, real people) you don’t always have to comment “just looking for clicks” or “what clickbait?” Duh! That is exactly what we are trying to do: get clicks. All those little ads on the pages are what drives the business.
- If you want, I would highly encourage you to reach out with a sample and write for us.
Give it a shot! You don’t make much money and people really tend to “hate” on your stuff but that is exactly what being a real writer feels like.
Follow me on Twitter at @authorrudylb and check out my other writings at www.rudylb.com or my first novel here. Follow us at @WiSportsHeroics! For all things Wisconsin sports, click here! Also, check out our merch store for some amazing merchandise!
