Milwaukee Brewers Fight Prison Site Near Stadium

MILWAUKEE — The president of the Milwaukee Brewers testified in Circuit Court today that the construction of a prison near Milwaukee County Stadium would have a chilling effect on attendance.

“You wouldn’t put a prison across from Disneyland,” Allan Selig said.

“The Milwaukee market is the smallest in major-league baseball,” Selig added. “The smaller the market, the more important attendance is.”

Selig was the first person to take the witness stand in a hearing before Clarence R. Parrish on the Brewers’ request to review an environmental impact statement by the state Department of Health and Social Services on the $51.5-million maximum-medium security prison planned by the state on a 46.3-acre site in the Menomonee River Valley near the stadium. Construction is scheduled to begin this spring.

In answer to a question, Selig said: “Let’s say there’s an internal disturbance at the prison--all the things that we have done to market our business are gone. It would have a chilling, short-term effect, and whatever we tried to do from that point on would be fatal.”

Selig repeatedly referred to the market as the smallest in baseball.

“We need 2 million people to break even. A drop of any kind in attendance would hurt us. A 20% drop would be catastrophic. We couldn’t survive a 20% drop.”

He said the trend throughout the country is to build stadiums in the midst of entertainment complexes, such as the Meadowlands in New Jersey.