“Growing Up Wisconsin: A Sports Fan’s Perspective, Then and Now”
Consider the three major televised sports in Wisconsin: football, basketball, and baseball. When I reflect on the success from recent years of play for the Green Bay Packers, Milwaukee Bucks, Milwaukee Brewers, and University of Wisconsin Badger teams, I’m given a sense that fans like myself have a lot to be thankful for. World titles. Conference and division championships. Postseason advancement. Relevant regular season play. As a child of the 80s and 90s, I have great memories from my adolescence of watching these teams compete at both live events and during family gatherings around the living room TV. I can also recall the bantering I would engage in with friends at school about what happened in last night’s game. One of the biggest differences from the years of my childhood compared to now is the growth of fan expectations, as the quality of play I see from our home-state teams has improved across the board. The truth of this statement has drawn me to a simple conclusion: for young sports fans in Wisconsin today—like my kids—who are growing up in the thick of our current sports environment, they have no idea how good they have it.
I’ve always wanted the Packers, Bucks, Brewers, and Badgers to win the big games, but for many years I didn’t have the luxury of expecting them to.
Our kids are twelve and eight years old. Thinking back to when I was their age, I can remember feeling like my home-state teams were good enough to watch, but also knowing that they weren’t really among the best teams in their leagues. The Packers could arguably be seen as the exception, at least once Brett Favre came onto the scene in 1992. We had some pretty lean years in Green Bay leading up to the Favre era though, as we did for the Brewers, Bucks, and Badgers, who for the better parts of my childhood were little more than an afterthought in the eyes of the national sports world. I can remember riding in the car with my dad one day in the early 1990s. We were listening to the news on the radio and the sports broadcaster made it a point to say how the Packers, Badgers, and Brewers had all won their games the previous weekend. Apparently this was some kind of a miracle since the feat hadn’t happened for a number of years. Fast forward 30 years later and it hardly seems like that would be headline news. Success can spoil a person. Enjoy it for long enough and you can make the mistake of thinking you’ve always had it. The fact that so many Wisconsin-based sports teams have achieved their levels of present-day success is one thing. What’s even more impressive is how they’ve managed to maintain it.
Comparing sports teams from different eras is challenging. Records and accolades don’t tell the whole story, but they can serve as a good starting point.
To emphasize how fortunate my kids are to be growing up in our current Wisconsin-sports climate, I looked back at the records and accomplishments for the Packers, Brewers, Bucks, and Badgers from the past 10 years (2012-2022) and compared my findings to the central 10 years of my childhood (1985-1995). Not surprisingly, the results speak for themselves:
Green Bay Packers
2012-2022
Record: 103-56-21
Accomplishments: Eight playoff seasons, seven division titles, four conference title games
1985-1995
Record: 69-90-1
Accomplishments: Two playoff seasons
Milwaukee Brewers
2012-2022
Record: 775-774
Accomplishments: Four playoff seasons (2018-2022), two division titles, one conference title game
1985-1995
Record: 778-793
Accomplishments: Finished higher than third place in their division only one time
Milwaukee Bucks
2012-2022
Record: 426-375
Accomplishments: Eight playoff seasons, four division titles, two conference title games, one world championship
1985-1995
Record: 403-417
Accomplishments: Six playoff seasons, two division titles, one conference title game
University of Wisconsin Badgers (Football)
2012-2022
Record: 93-36
Accomplishments: Ten bowl games (7-3 record, four Rose Bowl appearances), four division titles, one conference championship
1985-1995
Record: 42-69-2
Accomplishments: Two bowl games (2-0 record, one Rose Bowl appearance), two division titles, one conference title game
University of Wisconsin Badgers (Men’s Basketball)
2012-2022
Record: 240-107
Accomplishments: Eight NCAA tournaments, four Sweet Sixteens, two Final Fours, one NCAA championship game, three conference championships
1985-1995
Record: 143-150
Accomplishments: One NCAA tournament
With sports success has come the evolution of Wisconsin sports culture.
Looking back to my childhood, the only major Wisconsin sports team that I can recall having a nationally recognizable audience was the Green Bay Packers. They don’t call Green Bay Title Town for nothing. Despite their struggles throughout most of the 1970s and 1980s, the Packers organization remains one of the winningest franchises in football history, with 13 world championships, 28 members in the NFL Hall of Fame, and the claim of having both fans and (seemingly) Packer sports bars in every major U.S. city. As for the Brewers, Bucks, and Badgers, what I remember about their fan-base at a national level is this: not much. That isn’t to say they didn’t have supporters throughout the country, only that the scale of their following was much different than it is now. The Brewers of today have built a brand based on fun. They have a parking lot filled with game-day tailgaters, and a beautiful, indoor stadium where fans engage in a “party” type of atmosphere that feels similar to a college environment. The Bucks have constructed a similar, high-energy brand centered on the generational talent of Giannis Antetokounmpo. They play in a state-of-the-art arena, compete with a blue collar, chip-off-the shoulder attitude, and carry a “Fear the Deer” mentality that their fans embrace. Badger Nation enjoys a football program that has gone from being the perennial doormats of the Big Ten to yearly conference title game contenders, Running Back U, and home of the “Jump Around” tradition. Badger basketball has become a model for consistency in Big Ten conference play, post-season tournament qualification, hard work, overachievement, and player development.
Sports fans of all generations in Wisconsin have a lot to be thankful for. Continued success has led to increased regional and national visibility, which has resulted in more athletes wanting to showcase their skills by competing in our state.
We have a passionate, knowledgeable fan base that genuinely wants to see our teams succeed. Professional and collegiate sports seasons are long. We’re talking multiple months and hundreds of days and games. When your team is out of the running in the first few weeks of their season, the results can be demoralizing. Here in Wisconsin, we haven’t had much of that in recent years. We don’t always (or even usually) win the big games, but the fact that most of our teams are good enough to win, and in some years are even favored to should be enough to keep us going. Optimism is a beautiful thing, in sports and in life. Most of our teams are in the midst of some good and even historic runs. Win or lose, we should do our best to appreciate, enjoy, and remain present in these moments. As our Viking, Bear, Lion, Timber Wolf, Bull, Piston, Twin, Cub, White Sox, Tiger, Golden Gopher, Hawkeye, Fighting Illini, and Wolverine rivals can attest, sustained (and even fleeting) success in sports doesn’t come easy.
Thanks for reading, everyone!
- Todd
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