The Milwaukee Bucks have signed on with Jet OUT, a private aviation company headquartered at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, marking the team's first-ever sponsorship deal with a private jet operator. The partnership pairs the NBA franchise with a company whose aircraft fly under the air traffic control call sign Cream City, a nod to Milwaukee baked directly into the company's identity.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Bucks contracted with Jet OUT as the team's official private aviation partner, a designation the franchise has never before assigned to an aviation company. Jet OUT company president Matt Wild framed the tie-up as a natural extension of the brand's roots, saying, “Milwaukee has been part of Jet OUT's identity from the beginning, and it's heard wherever we fly.”
The deal carries more than a logo swap. As detailed in an announcement from Urban Milwaukee, the partnership includes Jet OUT sponsoring a hole at the Milwaukee Bucks Foundation's annual golf outing, plus a fall 2026 private event at the company's Waukesha hangar where premium Bucks members will get an up-close look at a Cessna Citation CJ4 Gen2 aircraft.
What Cream City Actually Means in the Cockpit
The Cream City branding isn't just marketing flourish — it's registered with federal aviation authorities. Official FAA call sign records maintained by 123ATC confirm Jet OUT, LLC holds the three-letter ICAO designator CRE and the telephony call sign Cream City for air traffic control communications, the kind of designator pilots use nationwide to identify themselves to controllers.
Jet OUT's roots trace back to 2018, when founder and CEO Joe Crivello spun off the corporate flight department of Milwaukee-based commercial real estate firm Phoenix Investors and merged it with an acquired FAA Part 135 air carrier, according to In Business Magazine. Crivello had originally built that internal flight department back in 2014 just to shuttle executives between regional property acquisitions, long before it became a standalone aviation company.
A Fleet Doubling in Size Right as the Bucks Deal Lands
The timing lines up with an aggressive growth push. Per a report from Aviation International News, Jet OUT launched a fleet expansion plan set to double its aircraft count, scaling from eight to 17 Cessna Citation CJ4 Gen2 light jets by the end of 2026. The same outlet reported the company's jets run on Textron's Aircraft Recording System, logging more than 12,000 flight parameters at 80 samples per second and beaming data to maintenance crews every 30 minutes.
That growth is anchored partly in Waukesha, where the company has a planned or under-construction 22,000-square-foot terminal and hangar facility. The facility, the same reporting noted, was designed with private meeting rooms, a lounge, a bar, and a game room — the kind of space now set to host Bucks members this fall. Jet OUT also runs regional bases beyond Wisconsin serving South Florida, the Southwest, and Texas, using what Private Jet Card Comparisons described as a local-national co-ownership model rather than a single roaming fleet.
How the Partnership Fits Around Team Travel
The Bucks-Jet OUT partnership is described in terms of private aviation, foundation support and fan experiences. Jet OUT's arrangement includes foundation support and fan experiences, while the partnership announcement does not specify the Bucks' roster travel arrangements.
Jet OUT's Milwaukee footprint has shifted before. Its parent entity also launched Jet IN, a fixed-base operator facility at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport that opened in April 2023, before selling it to global provider Jet Aviation in September 2024 — a move In Business Magazine reported let Jet OUT focus primarily on its co-ownership and charter business. That co-ownership model lets clients fly Citation CJ4 jets, with pricing described on a day-based basis and with aircraft, pilots and support teams based near owners.
Hoodline has tracked hangar expansions tied to sports charter traffic at Mitchell International, part of a broader wave of general aviation shifts around Milwaukee that has also included the closure of a landmark jet hangar. The Bucks-Jet OUT deal adds another data point to that trend, tying one of the region's marquee sports franchises to a company headquartered in Milwaukee with multiple regional bases.
