The Green Bay Packers held their annual shareholders meeting at Lambeau Field on Monday.
It was Ed Policy’s first as team president and CEO. He used it to kill a rumor that has trailed the franchise since March.
Lambeau Field is not for sale.
“We’re not selling the naming rights to Lambeau Field,” Policy said, per ESPN’s Rob Demovsky.
That received the biggest cheer of the day, according Cheesehead TVs Aaron Nagler.
That should end a conversation that never should have started. Policy set it off himself in a Sports Business Journal interview this spring, when he acknowledged the possibility existed. Packers fans reacted the way you would expect.
The reason it started is not going anywhere.
The Packers Lost Money Last Year
Green Bay released its financial statement Friday. The team lost $1.1 million in the fiscal year that ended March 31, a first for the franchise, driven by soaring player costs.
The Packers are the only publicly owned team in the NFL. No billionaire owner. No minority stakes to sell to private equity. No public stadium money.
Policy has been blunt about what that math looks like.
“We don’t have the deep-pocket owner,” he told reporters at the NFL meetings in March.
Every other franchise has an advantage Green Bay doesn’t. That’s why this question keeps popping back up, and why Policy has acknowledged the Packers are close to owning the last stadium in the league without a corporate name.
So they are selling everything except the building.
The Titletown football field is now Emplify Health Field. The practice facility could be next. Ticket prices are climbing between 3 and 11 percent this season. Wisconsin plays Notre Dame at Lambeau on September 6, and the team is booking concerts and college games into the stadium during the months it used to sit empty.
The franchise is not in trouble. Green Bay’s corporate reserve fund sat at $579 million as of last July. But a team that cannot sell equity has to find its money somewhere, and Policy has spent his first year in the job pointing at every asset on the campus except the one with Curly Lambeau’s name on it.
None of this is new thinking. Former president/CEO Mark Murphy fielded a naming rights pitch years ago and turned it down flat.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Murphy said he told the company.
Lambeau opened in 1957 as New City Stadium. It was renamed in 1965 to honor Curly Lambeau. That part is staying put.
Packers Fans Don’t Forget About the Bears
At some point Monday, the crowd broke into the chant that has echoed around Lambeau Field for decades.
“The Bears still suck.”
It’s clear Packers fans haven’t forgot last season.
Chicago won the NFC North last season at 11-6. Green Bay finished 9-7-1 and backed into the seven seed after dropping five straight to close out the year.
Then the Bears ended their season in the wild-card round of the playoffs.
Green Bay led 21-3 at halftime of the wild-card round at Soldier Field and lost 31-27. It was the largest playoff comeback in Bears history and their first postseason win since the 2010 season. Jordan Love’s final throw fell incomplete in the end zone.
That makes two straight losses to Chicago and back-to-back one-and-done postseasons for the Packers.
Shareholders can chant whatever they want. They technically own the team.
But the Bears have won the last two meetings, and the next one is October 11.
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