Documenting The Fans During The Milwaukee Bucks Championship Run • Wisconsin Sports Photographer

I’ve said before that for me to be happy as a photographer I need to shoot a variety of things. These past few months, I’ve been very busy with corporate work that I greatly enjoy. Since the start of Covid, I hadn’t documented many events nor shot much in the way of sports. In early June, however, my contact at the Milwaukee Bucks reached out to see if I wanted to shoot some of their “Watch Parties” in the Deer District outside of the Milwaukee Bucks stadium. I jumped at the opportunity and thoroughly enjoyed recording the emotions of the fans. These watch parties generally brought in 15,000-25,000 fans, but for game 6 of the finals, that ballooned to around 65,000.

Luckily, the Bucks went deep into the play-offs and ultimately won the NBA Championship. In total, I shot five different watch parties. Two days after Bucks won the championship, they had a parade through the streets of Milwaukee followed by a celebration at Fiserv Forum with hundreds of thousands of fans in attendance. For the championship parade celebration, I was a member of a team of photographers shooting for the Bucks and the NBA. My responsibility was to shoot the parade on its route to the arena and then hustle my way back to the Fiserv to shoot the stage portion from an elevated position with other members of the media.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the watch parties and championship celebration.

Thanks for looking!

Mike