Do new NBA requirements mean Milwaukee can't host an all-star game? Not necessarily.

The city of Milwaukee has placed a bid to host the NBA all-star game in 2027 or 2028 after missing out on previous attempts to host. But new NBA stipulations for host cities suggest that the Cream City could have an uphill battle to land the game.

Joe Mussatto of The Oklahoman, writing about Oklahoma City's candidacy, cited an NBA spokesperson indicating that there are updated requirements for a host city, which include three pretty big ones for Milwaukee:

• 7,250 hotel rooms and a minimum of three five-star hotels

• A convention center with 650,000 square feet of exhibition space

• 75 nonstop domestic flights and at least 20 international flights

Milwaukee, which has only hosted one NBA all-star game, in 1977, doesn't hit any of those benchmarks. Oklahoma City plans to open a new downtown arena as early as 2029; the Bucks are still hoping to host an all-star game inside Fiserv Forum, which opened in 2018.

Does this mean the NBA will rule out Milwaukee?

Bucks president Peter Feigin told the Milwaukee Business Journal that Milwaukee would seek an exemption, and VISIT Milwaukee president Peggy Williams-Smith said in a radio interview that she'd never rule Milwaukee out.

An NBA spokesperson indicated in a statement to the Journal Sentinel that Milwaukee's candidacy could still work.

“There is a variety of criteria that the NBA evaluates when selecting future host cities for NBA All-Star. Event venues, hotel availability and access to a major international airport are just three among many other resources necessary to ensure the event’s success. As NBA All-Star grows, so does the infrastructure needed to support the event footprint and the influx of fans into the host market. The NBA consistently works with all interested team markets on meeting that criteria.”

Jeff Fleming, spokesman for the office of Mayor Cavalier Johnson, also indicated this wasn't the death knell for Milwaukee.

"The mayor continues to work to attract future events — including an NBA All-Star Weekend," he said. "The city has shown great success in staging big events, as the NBA saw during the Bucks championship season.

"And, we have a track record of winning bids such as hosting presidential nominating conventions in both 2020 and this year. When the Republicans come to town in July, the world will see what an ideal location Milwaukee is for gatherings that draw huge attendance and enormous media attention."

How close is Milwaukee to hitting those new NBA all-star weekend requirements anyway?

Milwaukee would easily hit the necessary number of hotel rooms, even in the downtown area alone, but doesn't have any five-star hotels.

There isn't a central service that gives star ratings to hotels, so it's not a simple identification process. AAA, perhaps the country's most respected rating service, does give out diamonds on a scale of one to five and identifies The American Club of Kohler as the only five-diamond hotel in the state.

Milwaukee does have seven four-diamond hotels, including The Pfister, The Iron Horse and Saint Kate, plus another in Wauwatosa (Renaissance Milwaukee West) and one more in Delafield (The Delafield Hotel).

But even still, the newly renovated Baird Convention Center will offer only half the space suggested by the NBA for all-star weekend — and, no, State Fair Park doesn't have a bigger space.

Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport offers flights to just more than 30 destinations and only five international flights — some only seasonally.

Haven't small markets hosted the NBA all-star game recently?

Yes, the game last weekend was held in Indianapolis, with Salt Lake City and Cleveland hosting the preceding years. But those bids were accepted before these new stipulations.

The Bucks were rebuffed in their attempt to host the 2025 and 2026 games, which went to the Chase Center in San Francisco and the new Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California, respectively.

Didn't NBA commissioner Adam Silver explicitly say Milwaukee would someday get an all-star game?

Silver seemed to indicate Milwaukee was in the hopper when he spoke to WTMJ's Lance Allan in 2018, saying that it was "on the horizon" when he was checking out Fiserv Forum shortly before it opened.

Silver added: "It's very likely to happen at some point. I can't put a specific year on it, but we make a point of coming to new arenas. So, obviously, there's other cities that are competing for all-stars. Some of them got in line before Fiserv Forum, but there's no question we will be here with an all-star game."

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Do new NBA requirements mean Milwaukee can't host an all-star game?