Heard This On TheScore670 Yesterday...

That's great, thanks for posting it

 

Along with the news that GB is the 18th most valuable sports franchise in the world, this just lends further credence to the fact that we all cheer for the best franchise in all of sports

 

The Packers are a perfect fit for WI, and WI is a perfect fit for The Mighty Green Bay Packers

Interesting thoughts about how most sports teams will be publicly owned.  I don't buy it, there will be Billionaire's that will continue to spend $$$ on these "toys" franchises.  Also, if most sports teams were to go public, there would be quite a hub bub in in all of the cities about $$$.  I think there would also have to be some federal legislation that would need to be changed, if they were public.  How would public entities jive with the Sherman anti-trust act?  

 

Interesting to think about, but I would highly doubt that this ever happens.

 

I'd put more stock in    becoming owners.  

Hub is a straight up idiot. He's bashed the Bears for years.

 

Well, he has a pretty strong case.

I can't picture any municipality (Hello Detroit) ever coming up with  cool half or billion dollars to buy a franchise when most big cities are broke and getting broker.

 

Haven't Packer games always started at home at noon LFT?

A future shortage of billionaires?  Perish the thought.

Wealth hasn't been this concentrated in the top 1% since the late 1920's.

 

The NFL would prefer to go out of business over allowing more franchises to become publicly owned, non-profit entities. Every once in a while, there are articles citing comments from unnamed owners complaining about the ownership situation of the Packers. A successful, small market, non-profit team makes some of the less successful teams with mega-rich owners and/or a big media market look very bad.

The league doesn't like Green Bay (Seattle last year is proof positive) but they know they'd lose a very large fan base if the Packers ever fold.

I think the Packers are such a unique situation that it would be hard in this day and age to duplicate. 

 

I mean, the city of Detroit just declared bankruptcy, and a lot of other cities and towns are under water or are challenged financially so it's hard for me to believe that any municipality would go the public route like GB.  Simply put, most citizens wouldn't allow it. 

 

Others mentioned this as well, but despite the economy there will always be Dan Synder and Jerry Jones types that will line up to buy these teams.   As much as we like how the Packers are organized, the bottom line is that I'm sure if the owners had their way they'd prefer it be privately owned for a number of reasons. 

Nope. Back before the days of double header TV east coast games started at 1:00 EST and Midwest games meaning Packers, Bears, etc. started at 1:00 CST. When double header games became the norm all "early games" start at the same time.

The Packers are a publicly owned franchise, but not publicly run. Could you imagine the disaster this franchise would be if it were publicly run?

Others mentioned this as well, but despite the economy there will always be Dan Synder and Jerry Jones types that will line up to buy these teams. 

 

The "economy" has really had no impact on the number of people who can afford an NFL franchise.  I am pretty sure there are many more ultra rich in the world today than there were in 2007. 

I don't think a "publicly owned team" has anything to do with any municipality. I think it means publicly owned through shareholders just like General Electric or IBM.

Other than the extra sales tax in Brown County I don't think the city of Green Bay or its citizens have a financial obligation to the Packers.

 

The Packers just sold $63M in FAKE stock certificates....I don't think it would be hard for teams to have a real public share offering if a single owner couldn't be found. Those individual shareholders wouldn't need to have any relationship with the city that the team was actually located in.

I can still remember the old man's Sunday ritual of watching Meet the Press, and then Jack Whitaker and Pat Summerall doing the NFL today for a 1 pm game. 

 

I miss the 1 pm starts. More anticipation over a leisurely lunch.

 

The theme song is a real blast from the past.

http://youtu.be/ZRHL_Pvpdt4

 

Good point- publicly owned in the usual context of publicly owned doesn't apply to the Packers. Owned by the city is more accurate.

But a question, then: how do municipally owned entities operate so poorly by comparison? Typically these other entities are supported and operated by tax dollars, like a city bus program or public building. And most programs that I have seen like that are in the red almost to a one. Is it just because of the market or business they're in? That publicly funded "businesses" are in markets where they cannot self sustain, thus need tax dollars to stay afloat. But here the Packers are, seemingly no different than say, Metra ( ) but are massively more successful.

I don't think the Packers are owned by the city.

 

I think they are an organization like the The Boy Scouts or the Salvation Army. Not owned by an owner, public shareholders or a municipality.

 

I really wonder just what legal ties to the city they really have. Couldn't the Packers move to LA if the board of directors agreed it was the best move for the team?

 

Really they are not owned or controlled by the city or the supposed shareholders.

The Green Bay Packers Board of Directors is the organization that serves as the owner of record for the Green Bay Packers football club.

 

The corporation is governed by a seven-member Executive Committee, elected from the board of directors. The committee directs corporate management, approves major capital expenditures, establishes board policy and monitors management's performance in conducting the business and affairs of the corporation.

 

They also provide donuts on Fridays. 

Bob Harlan dropped a suggestion that there was a chance that the Packers could leave Green Bay if the tax resolution for the Lambeau renovations didn't pass when he was campaigning for it. I think there was some debate over whether or not they could legally leave Brown County or Wisconsin due to the way they were incorporated, not due to shareholders or anything like that, but arcane tax/business regulations.

 

That is the worst comparison ever.  One is infrastructure, the other is a past time.

Cronuts or GTFO

That is freakin' awesome! I was 9 years old for a minute there.

Other than Al Davis, who was in a league all his own with franchise relocations, there was a spate of movement, birth of "new" franchises, and expansion all in a relatively short period of time.

I wondered then why cities weren't the owners of franchises, and the simple, immediate answer was "politics". It's a lot harder to steal money when it actually has to be accounted for.

Ditto!

 

I want to watch Bart Starr!

Some historical perspective on the question.

 

An attempt was made by Curly Lambeau and 3 other investors to convert the Packers from non-profit to a for-profit corporation in 1950.  "Had Lambeau been successful in taking the team to for-profit status, he and the other investors, without question, would have moved the team to a larger market for obvious financial reasons.......League owners decried the poor revenue yielded by the limited ticket sales in Green Bay (City Statium's capacity had maxed out at 25,000).......  Lambeau's proposal to buy the team was shot down by the full board at the courthouse meeting on the 30th."

 

More details in the book and also in the three volume series by Larry Names on the history of the Packers.  The book has great pictures btw.

 

Source: Green Bay: A City and Its Team  Dr. James Hurly and Thomas Murphy

For the foreseeable future, the NFL is profitable which means there are plenty of billionaire individuals that can have their egos stroked by owning a team.  

 

Sucker teams in Europe are spending over 320 million Euros to sign player from one team to anther.  The NFL is not even close to maturing to that level of money passing.  That you need a corporations to own an NFL team in this day and age is asinine.  If it got to that, the Packers would be swallowed or dissolved in a heartbeat.

Soccer teams don't have revenue sharing or a salary cap.  Ask Goalline about Leeds Utd or Glasgow Rangers.

(And many of the EPL teams are owned by wealthy foreigners looking for an ego boost, too.)

 

Yeah, but you people keep posting anyway.