Your WBA Hall of Fame has been a part of Marcus Corp’s Hilton Milwaukee for more than 10 years, occupying a long hallway in the historic hotel.
While the hallway is, indeed, long, it was becoming too short for our ever-growing WBA Hall of Fame. In a typical year, four large plaques are added to the hall. Space was getting short.
Combine that with a renovation project at the hotel, and discussions with the Hilton began about the fate of the WBA Hall of Fame. Being in such a beautiful, 24-hour facility, made the Hilton a fantastic fit. The Hilton was also interested in keeping the Hall of Fame, maintaining its historic connection to broadcasters. You can read more about that here.
After exploring a few options, we were all excited to move forward with moving the plaques to a new space in the Hilton near the hotel’s skyway connection to the Baird Center. It’s a well-defined space for a hall of fame that gets a lot of foot traffic. It also has far more wall space, giving our Hall of Fame room to expand for many years to come.
Your WBA has always turned to American Awards and Promotions in Milton to maintain and expand the Hall of Fame. Mark Warren, Amy Mallon, and their team put in many hours and a lot of hard work to remove the plaques and replace them in the new space. There was a tremendous level of planning involved, as well. Mark had the new Hall of Fame mapped out to the inch before any work began.
The Hilton renovated the space right before the Hall of Fame was moved in. The Hilton was undergoing renovations throughout the building, giving our Hall of Fame a beautiful space with a fresh new look to move into.
As part of the upgrade, we also installed a newer and much larger video monitor that plays the latest WBA Hall of Fame show on a loop. We will soon add into the loop an introduction to the Hall of Fame featuring myself and Greg Marcus. We are tremendously fortunate that the Marcus family has been an amazing supporter of the WBA Hall of Fame. They and the Hilton Milwaukee management team have been truly wonderful to work with.
I’d also like to call out WBA Hall of Famer and Foundation Board Emeritus member Bill Hurwitz for his critical role in working with the Foundation, Marcus and the Hilton on the Hall of Fame project.
We will soon record and distribute new radio and TV spots promoting the Hall of Fame. Watch for those soon. Thank you to Bill Chappie and the creative team at WITI-TV in Milwaukee for your production help. To celebrate our new Hall of Fame, a reception is planned for April 2 at the Hilton Milwaukee from 5:30-8 p.m. You can find registration information here. We’d absolutely love to see you there!
