Less than two years before Marvin Fishman, the self-described “unknown real estate man from Milwaukee,” became Marv Fishman, an “owner of Milwaukee’s new NBA franchise,” he stood before county officials trying to establish the city’s first professional sports team since the Milwaukee Braves left town.
Fishman wasn’t interested in basketball yet. He was set on bringing a football team to Milwaukee.
At 4 p.m. on Sept. 1, 1966, Fishman met with the county board to request a County Stadium lease agreement for his prospective Continental Football League franchise. The team was Fishman’s dream born out of months spent recovering in hospitals from pericarditis, an infection that causes the sac around the heart to swell. He had plenty of time to ponder why Milwaukee, then the 11th-largest city in the United States, wasn’t a major-league hub.
“Somebody had to do something about getting major league sports for Milwaukee,” Fishman wrote in his book "Bucking the Odds: The Birth of the Milwaukee Bucks".