I am sure part of it is that the folks of Green Bay are very devoted to their home team, and plenty of people from the rest of Wisconsin also drive over to Green Bay for home games - but still it always seemed odd that Green Bay - with maybe 100,000 people could support a major sports franchise when much larger cities struggle to attract or maintain NFL, NBA, NHL, or MLB teams.
Does a third of the population of Green Bay hold season tickets?
They own the team. 
I don’t really know much about pro ball, but I seem to recall that, by some historical fluke, Green Bay is the only publicly owned pro ball club. Anybody want to help out here?
Ticket sales do not support an NFL team. Revenues from TV and radio rights and Logo sales do much more.
Well, Green Bay has 250,000 residents, more than enough to sell out the stadium every game. The NFL’s revenue sharing program and league TV contract enable the Pack to stay in the black.
Plus, the team can’t be moved because it’s publicly owned.
The NFL started in the 1920s with a lot of teams that were in mid-sized Midwestern cities (Canton, Frankfort, Racine, Portsmouth). Green Bay lasted because it was successful early on.
In the 1940s and 1950s, the Packers weren’t very good, but neither was the NFL.
By the time the NFL became THE NFL, it was the 1960s, Vince Lombardi was coaching the Packers and moving the Packers was unthinkable.
The Packers actually until the late 1980s I believe would play a couple home games a year in Milwaukee, but gave those up to play more games in Lambeau Field, from which the Packers make a lot of money.
Yes, it is publicly owned, and I own part of the Packers. I am an NFL owner. It doesn’t bring me anything financially except a certain state of mind.
A third of Green Bay would love to own season tickets. The current waiting list for season tickets is in excess of 20 years.
Qadgop the Packerfan
Ringo:
Pro football, maybe. If you mean in all American major league sports, I believe the Boston Celtics are also publicly owned.
Nuerotik, GreenBay only has about 100,000 residents.
The size of GB has nothing to do with the support, there are a ton of ticket holders all around the state, including the Fox Valley area and the Greater Milwaukee area. The Packers tickets are way under priced for the amount of demand that there is for them. They could and should double the price. This would net them more revenue and knock some of the people off of the 20 year waiting list so I could move closer to the front.
without hurting the attendance one bit.
Especially after they win the Super Bowl this year.
Explain your ownership in the Packers. I was always confused as to the depth at which the average person could “own” part of the team. I thought it was more symbolic than anything. Like you give them some money and they give you a document saying you “own” part of the team, but in the end it is no more an ownership than me buying $60 dollar Favre jersey is.
The NFL is structured in such a manner that it is theoretically possible to run a profitable franchise in Antarctica. Unlike other pro sports, TV revenues are not sold by the individual clubs. Whereas in, say, baseball, the New York Yankees get broadcasting revenues many times greater than what the Pittsburgh Pirates get, in football every team shares a single gigantic pie. Green Bay is getting the same TV revenues - huge, huge TV revenues - as New York or Chicago.
It’s certainly true that the lineup for Packer tickets is longer than a lineup for blue jeans in the Soviet Union, but selling a reasonable number of tickets for an NFL team isn’t hard. NFL teams only play eight home games; basketball and hockey teams play 41 home games, baseball teams play 81. A football team has to sell far FEWER tickets than do teams in other sports; the Packers cannot possibly sell more than 580,120 tickets in a regular season. Granted, they’re pricey tickets, but it’s obviously going to be easier to find enough people to fill the stadium 8 times than it is to fill it 41 times or 81 times.
The NFL is primarily a television show.
The Celtics used to be publicly traded, but they aren’t anymore. The Cleveland Indians were also.
I believe that their respective ownership groups pulled back all the public stock and returned them to private hands.
To be precise, the Packers are MUNICIPALLY owned.
Basically you get voting rights and an invitation to the annual shareholders meeting. Oh, and a nice, suitable for framing certificate which demonstrates that you are, indeed, a co-owner of an NFL team. Just like Art Modell and Jerry Jones!
No, it’s not a good investment if one is looking for something to make money with. But it is a unique item, and is no longer available unless you inherit it from a family member. Anyone can buy a Favre jersey, but you’ve got to be a real cheesehead to be an owner!
Besides, it is what helps ensure we keep a team here in our land of milk and curds. If it hadn’t been for past stock sales, the team would have died out or moved long ago.
QtM-Do you get to wear jumpsuits like Al Davis? If I was an NFL owner, I’d do it all the time.
http://www.packers.com/stockholders/
I, too, own stock, another benefit we get to do is every year we’re invited to Lambeau for a party and to vote on the Board, President, etc. They in turn act as a regular Board of Directors. Making personnel, financial, and other such decisions.
Any other questions can be answered within the other links.
Oh yeah, in the charter it also states should the Green Bay Packers, Inc be dissolved, all proceeds go to a single VFW Post in the area. i.e. the team never be sold and never moved.
In Soviet Union, blue jeans line up for you!
There are two community/publically/municipally (or however you want to phrase it) teams that I know of in the CFL (Canadian Football league, original home of Jeff Garcia and Warren Moon)
The Saskatchewan Roughriders
The Edmonton Eskimos
Interesting sidenote - The Roughriders are the only PROFESSIONAL football team that has both a black general manager and black head coach. I bet Johnny Cochrane hasn’t brought that one up yet.
Yakov Smirnoff jokes never get old…
Reeder and RickJay really answer the OP. Let me add to their stuff: not just Logos but all NFL licensing – Shoes, hats, video games, jerseys, Swooshes on the on-field NFL shoes and uniforms … all the stuff is thrown into a big pot and New York and Dallas share evenly with smaller markets like GB and Pittsburgh.
I believe that in-Stadium advertising, suites, Personal Seat Licenses, naming rights, parking, home radio, concessions, and local area marketing “Popeye’s official sponsor of YOUR Washington Redskins” are the only monies that an NFL team keeps totally. Even the ticket sales for home stadium games are split with the visiting team using a formula (IIRC it is 65-35 Home – I may be wrong on that specific).
The other factor helping Green Bay is the NFL salary cap. Not only is the incoming Money the same for each team, but expenditures are more or less the same as is team required to spend only between X and Y amounts each year. For all its flaws it means that there is a defacto limit on salaries – they will always be a certain percentage of the NFL income and it means that there will always be small market competitiveness.
BTW in 2003 the TV contract gave each team $71 million and it rises each year