Herb Kohl: Turning Down Michael Jordan to Keep the Milwaukee Bucks Home

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Imagine, just for a second, that you are a billionaire.

SPEAKER_2 (0:05)

Okay, I'm trying.

SPEAKER_1 (0:06)

Right?

So, you own a professional sports team. And one day, the phone rings. And it's Michael Jordan.

SPEAKER_2 (0:14)

Wow.

SPEAKER_1 (0:14)

Yeah, the legendary, globally recognized Michael Jordan. And he says, you know, he wants to buy your team.

SPEAKER_2 (0:21)

That is, I mean, that's the dream call for an owner, right?

SPEAKER_1 (0:24)

Exactly. He's offering you $170 million. Geez. It is a massive payday. It's a partnership with a global icon. It's the kind of deal that makes sports headlines for months.

SPEAKER_2 (0:36)

Right, right.

SPEAKER_1 (0:37)

And you just turn it down cold. You just say no.

SPEAKER_2 (0:41)

Which is wild.

SPEAKER_1 (0:42)

And you don't do it because you're holding out for a higher price. You do it simply because you are afraid he might move the team out of your hometown.

SPEAKER_2 (0:51)

It sounds, honestly, completely contradictory to everything we expect from professional sports owners. Yeah. I mean, we are so conditioned to watch the ultra wealthy just chase the highest possible return on investment or, you know, jump at the chance to associate with a brand like Michael Jordan.

SPEAKER_1 (1:06)

Oh, absolutely.

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But the decision to reject that offer really tells you almost everything you need to know about the underlying motivations of the man who actually did it.

SPEAKER_1 (1:16)

It's like being offered a starring role in a massive hundred million dollar Hollywood blockbuster and turning it down just so you can keep acting in your local community theater.

SPEAKER_2 (1:26)

Right. Just because you promised you'd help them keep the lights on.

SPEAKER_1 (1:28)

Exactly. So today, our deep dive is focused on that very man, Herb Kohl.

SPEAKER_2 (1:34)

A fascinating guy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_1 (1:36)

He was a grocery store heir, the namesake of a massive retail empire, an NBA franchise owner, and a United States senator who served for 24 years.

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And our mission today is to figure out how a man who built such extraordinary private wealth managed to use it in such a uniquely quiet, almost unconventional way.

SPEAKER_1 (1:55)

Right. Because he doesn't fit the mold.

SPEAKER_2 (1:57)

He really doesn't. He became this incredibly powerful force in public service and civic preservation. But without the usual grandstanding or ego-driven behavior you see from massive political figures or billionaires today.

SPEAKER_1 (2:11)

To figure out why a guy is so obsessively loyal to his hometown, that he'd reject Michael Jordan, we really have to look at the foundation of his life.

SPEAKER_2 (2:20)

Yeah. You have to go back to the beginning.

SPEAKER_1 (2:22)

Right. Because we're looking at a pretty vivid picture of the classic American dream playing out in Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_2 (2:28)

Yeah. His loyalty to Milwaukee wasn't just geographic. It was intensely personal. It was rooted in his family's actual survival.

SPEAKER_1 (2:36)

Tell me about that.

SPEAKER_2 (2:38)

So he was born there in 1935 His parents, Max and Mary, were Jewish immigrants. Okay. His father came from Poland, his mother from Russia, and they arrived in the United States in the 1920s with absolutely nothing.

SPEAKER_1 (2:50)

Wow. Just starting from scratch.

SPEAKER_2 (2:52)

Completely from scratch in Milwaukee.

SPEAKER_1 (2:55)

Which, you know, that sets a fascinating baseline for his entire worldview.

SPEAKER_2 (2:58)

How so?

SPEAKER_1 (2:59)

Well, when you watch your parents build a life in a new country, that city becomes more than just a place on a map.

SPEAKER_2 (3:05)

Right.

SPEAKER_1 (3:06)

It's the literal soil where your family took root. I mean, it provides a sense of debt to the community, right?

SPEAKER_2 (3:13)

Absolutely. And he was very much a product of that local community.

SPEAKER_1 (3:17)

He didn't go off to boarding schools or anything.

SPEAKER_2 (3:19)

No. No.

He went to the local public school, Washington High School, and then got his bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1956

SPEAKER_1 (3:28)

Keeping it local.

SPEAKER_2 (3:29)

Very local. And an interesting detail from that time is the network he was, you know, unknowingly building.

SPEAKER_1 (3:35)

Oh, yeah?

SPEAKER_2 (3:35)

Yeah. While he was an undergrad, his college roommate was Bud Selig.

SPEAKER_1 (3:39)

Wait, really?

SPEAKER_2 (3:41)

Yes.

SPEAKER_1 (3:41)

The Bud Selig?

SPEAKER_2 (3:42)

Yes. The guy who would later become the commissioner of Major League Baseball.

SPEAKER_1 (3:47)

That is just wild. Two college kids splitting rent in Wisconsin, probably arguing over whose turn it is to buy groceries, not knowing they'd both grow up to fundamentally shape the landscape of American professional sports.

SPEAKER_2 (4:01)

It's an amazing historical footnote.

SPEAKER_1 (4:04)

But it also highlights how deep his local roots ran.