Jim Fitzgerald - Business Accomplishments

Business Accomplishments

After graduating cum laude, from Notre Dame he briefly joined Standard Oil. In 1948 he began his business career with a partner, Fred Weber. They became the Shell Oil jobbers for Janesville, Wisconsin, opening their first gas station on Parker Drive. The business started by Fitzgerald and Weber grew quickly, adding gas stations and car washes. In the late 1950s, Fitzgerald began building shopping centers with his brother-in-law, J.P. Cullen. In the early 1960s, he built the first Holiday Inn in Janesville with other investors, including Cullen and the Ryan brothers, both owners of regionally noted construction firms, and expanded to six other cities.

The Fitzgerald group later bought into banks and cable television franchises in Janesville (Total TV, Inc.) and Madison, Wisconsin. The cable operations were eventually sold to Jones Intercable (now part of Comcast) and TCI. In 1975, Fitzgerald led a group of investors to buy Milwaukee Professional Sports and Service, Inc., the parent company of the NBA Milwaukee Bucks.

In the early 1980s, Total TV expanded throughout Wisconsin to include 40 cities. The growth was driven by many new cable-only channels, including MTV, CNN, USA Network, ESPN and Showtime. It was around this time that Fitzgerald became chairman of the NBA's television committee. He and Bud Selig (former owner of the Milwaukee Brewers who eventually became Major League Baseball Commissioner) founded the pay-per-view Sportsvue cable channel in Milwaukee which carried Bucks and Brewers games to fans throughout Wisconsin.