Milwaukee isn’t known for having public teams. They’re neighbors to the north in Green Bay are probably one of the most public teams in football. Brewers and Bucks really have never grasped a nation even when Brew Crew went on their run in 2011 or Milwaukee’s Big 3 in early 2000’s. Giannis Antetokounmpo is changing that for Milwaukee Bucks. Bucks star finished in the top ten of jersey sales for the entire NBA and one ahead of James Harden. Jersey sales are a great way to tell the story of what the overall public thinks of your team. What this says is Bucks are clearly on the rise, not just in Milwaukee.

Giannis Antetokounmpo jumped up 5 spots since January to finish in Top Ten of NBA's most popular jerseys » https://t.co/ZnaL6YMlQD pic.twitter.com/fJuGrCOZ8l

— Milwaukee Bucks (@Bucks) April 11, 2017

This is exciting news for Bucks because we’ll get more Giannis in our lives and so will the fans across the country. Bucks are going to get more national televised broadcasts even though they struggled at times in them. Turner Sports and ESPN both moved Bucks games as a flex in the second half of the season. It’s not unreasonable to think Bucks end up with a Saturday night game on ABC (PS This might not be just because Bucks are public, I think the NBA will work on fixing how those will not be rest games). I know it’s ‘just jersey sales’, but usually, they are strong indicator of how the rest of the league feels about the team.

As you know, they have Toronto in the first round of the playoffs. ESPN and NBA usually love opening up their playoff weekend in Toronto with an 11:30 am start on Saturday morning so don’t be shocked if they go there again. It should be a fun series, and my guess is they won’t see NBATV too much.

Charlie.