Bucks business strategist Matt Pazaras lives with multiple sclerosis

One minute Matt Pazaras was working on the business side of the NBA, walking through the stands of the arena, when a team doctor spotted him, looking unwell. The next thing he knew he was in the hospital, in a wheelchair, admitted for three weeks and hoping he wasn’t going to die.

Multiple sclerosis, a chronic disease of the central nerfous system, is not Pazaras’ identity. But it is something he has survived and something he manages, as a husband, father of three and with a sometimes stressful, sometimes high-profile career.

And now, the chief business development and strategy officer in his 10^th year with the Milwaukee Bucks wants to increase his role as advocate and ally, as an example that people can live and work, have families and thrive with MS.

“People can be having symptoms, but you can’t see them,” said Pazaras. “And sometimes that makes it hard. It’s like, wait, I know X,Y and Z. They seem fine.

“And on that note, one of the funny things for me, well, there’s things that bother me every day, especially since the last attack I had. I want to apologize to anybody whose name I forget, because it’s not on purpose!”

Matt Pazaras has landed big deals for Bucks

Under Pazaras’ guidance, the Bucks partnership revenue has increased 477%, according to longtime friend Barry Baum, who is also the Bucks chief communications officer.

It was Pazaras who landed the naming rights partnership with Fiserv for the new Bucks arena and Pazaras who inked deals with BMO, Johnson Controls, Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin, Motorola, Beechwood Sales & Service/Anheuser-Busch and Potawatomi Hotel & Casino. His team has also built partnerships with national and global brands, said Baum.

Certainly, two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and the 2021 Milwaukee Bucks NBA championship, also helped Pazaras take the Bucks “from the bottom of the NBA in partnership revenue to top third in the NBA” according to Baum. But this collaborative effort on the business side has changed the Bucks and Milwaukee’s image.

“We wanted to build a world class organization and from a partnership perspective, we wanted to be known as one of the best organizations to partner with,” said Pazaras. “We’ve raised the brand to be worth partnering with. We started in Wisconsin, but then well beyond nationally, internationally, we have partners all over the world.”

For a city like Milwaukee, he said, that’s unique. People are starting to learn about Brew City for being more than near Chicago.

“To that I would say, you’ve been to Manchester, England. Right? No? Know anything about it? No. But … you heard of it, right? Why is that? There you go!”

Neurologists struggled to diagnose Pazaras’ MS

But there was a time when Pazaras was really sick and unsure what was happening. He was working with the Brooklyn Nets in 2006 when he experienced extreme pain in one leg, as if his clothes and even the hardwood floor were scorching hot. He saw a doctor, but no one could give answers.

“And then that spring in 2007, it came back in full force,” said Pazaras. “Every day, I was losing some sort of function. My eyesight – you name it. I was losing that. A flight of stairs, I would fall down.”

Worse still, he and neurologists couldn’t find answers.

“One of the hardest parts is that in-between time where it’s mysterious and you don’t know what’s going on,” said Pazaras. “It could be Lyme disease – or all these different things. And you have no idea what’s happening to your body.”

It was the Nets team doctor that spotted Pazaras, and, after asking a few questions, sent him to the hospital right away (Pazaras can’t recall his name but is grateful to this day). After numerous tests at the Hackensack Medical Hospital, he finally got the diagnosis: multiple sclerosis – a disorder in which the body’s immune system attacks the protective covering of the nerve cells in the brain, optic nerve and spinal cord, called the myelin sheath, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Pazaras confided in a very good friend, Peter Feigin, who also worked with the Nets then and who is now the Bucks president.

“And Peter said, ‘This is serious. Mark Lasry, he is on the board of Mount Sinai Hospital. Let’s talk to him and see how we can help,’” said Pazaras. “And Mark was able to connect us with my doctor at Mount Sinai.

“I felt like the weight of the world was off my shoulders. Even though physically I was terrible, I felt great because somebody told me what I had.”

With resolute determination, strong courses of steroids and support, Pazaras remained on his MS medication to lessen the chance of an episode.

“After about a year plus, I was normal. I didn’t know if that would ever happen. And it all went away,” he said.

Pazaras has had just a couple of major episodes in the years following his MS diagnosis. But it took a lot of effort and a little luck through connections.

Netss and Bucks helped Pazaras with resources to deal with multiple sclerosis

Pazaras started with the Bucks in December 2014, shortly after the arrivals of Feigin and CFO Pat McDonough. The three had worked together at Madison Square Garden for the Knicks. Pazaras and Barry Baum worked at the Nets together when the team was still based in New Jersey. It’s a tight knit group that has supported Pazaras. But even he was surprised to find even more support here in unexpected places.

The move to Milwaukee was stressful for all the normal reasons, but even more so because Pazaras was leaving his medical care team. But on his very first day on the job with the Bucks, he was introduced to the leader of a major sponsor, who also has MS, who directed him to a team of doctors at Froedtert.

In the hope that anyone with MS can have access to resources, Pazaras started serving as a member of the board of trustees on the Wisconsin chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society in 2019.

“It’s great how Matt uses his influence and his tenure with the disease to help inform others and just hey, life can be great and be very possible, just with the right attitude, the right resources and the right support network,” said Rob Multerer, president of the MS Society in Wisconsin.

“I just have learned that you get so much more out of being open and vulnerable than by hiding things, like I was told,” said Pazaras. “I was told by somebody when I first got this: Don’t tell your employer, because you’ll lose your job benefits. I was like, ‘well, that doesn’t sound very good.’

“The Nets were so supportive and the Bucks are incredibly supportive.”

Those with MS sometimes do have to contend with acceptance from employers as well as the strains of living with the disorder.

“With someone with MS, or another autoimmune or chronic disease, there are symptoms that are invisible,” said Multerer. “So you don’t know what’s going on in somebody’s head or their heart until you talk to them.”

MS Society even has an information packet titled “But you look so good.”

Multerer gave examples of people he knows with MS who were recently released from their employer after revealing they have the disease. Others step away from a job or scenario that is too stressful. Stress is one of the worst triggers for someone with MS. Pazaras believes one of his biggest episodes was the result of his mourning the loss of a good friend who unexpectedly died.

“Yes, people have been discriminated against, and, frankly, illegally or wrongfully discharged from their employment because of this disease,” said Multerer. “Because people think, ‘Oh, they can’t handle it. Oh, they can’t keep it up.’ Then you look at somebody like Matt; to me, that’s a pretty stressful and rigorous position.”

Event at Pfiser night spot Blu will benefit MS Society

On Tuesday, Pazaras will serve as a guest bartender at Blu at The Pfister to raise money for the MS Society. It’s part of a bigger program called BlueTender where the famous hotel invites guests from nonprofits to serve as bartenders every Tuesday.

The Milwaukee skyline of buildings will also turn orange – the symbolic color of MS – from the Hoan Bridge, to Fiserv Forum, that night and in honor of MS Awareness Week, March 10-16.

Multerer said nearly 1 million people live with MS in the U.S.; there are likely many more out there. Wisconsin has more than 20,000 residents with MS, one of the largest incident rates in the country. Some people have it and haven’t received a proper diagnosis.

“We have a board member who travels to small towns and he goes, MS is on farms and rural cities and they don’t even know,” said Multerer. He also said the Black community is affected and often has people who are undiagnosed.

“It’s so mysterious. It’s so weird. I know people that have taken three years to get diagnosed because it has baffled doctors,” said Multerer.