Overlapping Brewers, Badgers Games Force Families Into Flights-Or-Madison Choice

WAUKESHA — With the Brewers' World Series opening in Los Angeles the same weekend the Badgers host a pivotal Big Ten matchup against USC in Madison, Waukesha households are facing a scheduling conflict local travel agents are calling the worst since the city tried to plan around the 2024 Super Bowl decision.

The Waukesha Travel Group, a storefront agency on Sunset Drive that normally handles cruise bookings and the occasional Packers road trip, says it has booked 34 families on flights to Los Angeles since Tuesday. One family of four committed $8,200 to attend Games 2 and 3 in person, a figure the agency's owner described as "within normal range for this particular kind of insanity."

Dividing The Loyalties

"We've had three separate households split down the middle, where half the family flies to L.A. and the other half drives to Madison, and everyone agreed in advance not to talk about which trip was better. That's the only way these things survive contact with Thanksgiving."

— Renata Kowalczyk, owner, Waukesha Travel Group

Kowalczyk said seat prices for Saturday's flights out of Milwaukee topped $650 each by Wednesday afternoon, with one remaining connection through Minneapolis going for $910 before taxes. She said her office fielded 61 calls Thursday alone, more than during the week of the runway closure at Waukesha County Airport last summer.

Lakeland Air Charter, the fixed-base operator still recovering from that closure, confirmed it has fielded four separate inquiries about chartering a King Air to Los Angeles, all of which it declined to quote once the caller heard the hourly rate.

Plan B: Madison Or The Couch

Not every household is flying. The Dombrowski family of Hillcrest Drive opted to send 44-year-old Carl Dombrowski to Madison for the USC game with two of his brothers, while his wife, Lisa, and their two children stay home to watch the World Series on a 55-inch television purchased specifically for the occasion.

"I offered to drive him to the airport instead of Madison and he looked at me like I'd suggested he miss a funeral. So now I'm the one explaining to our daughter why dad picked a football game over a sport that only happens once a year."

— Lisa Dombrowski, Hillcrest Drive resident

Carl Dombrowski said the decision came down to logistics rather than loyalty: Madison hotel rooms near Camp Randall were still available for $189 a night as of Monday, while anything within walking distance of Dodger Stadium had been gone since Sunday.

The Logistics Nightmare

Both games are expected to run long. Saturday's World Series first pitch is scheduled for 7:08 p.m. Pacific, or 9:08 p.m. in Waukesha, meaning fans who also want to watch Saturday's early-afternoon Badgers kickoff are looking at roughly nine continuous hours of televised sports, broken only by whatever time it takes a freight train to clear the Broadway crossing on the way to the airport.

Kowalczyk said her agency has started asking clients a single qualifying question before booking anything: "Which one will you regret missing more, specifically, out loud, right now." She said the answers have been split almost exactly 50-50, with a slight edge toward whichever game has the better available hotel rate.

The Waukesha Travel Group said it expects a second wave of bookings if either series extends past this weekend, though Kowalczyk added that her office's hold music has already been changed twice this week to something she described as "more supportive."