Photo by Mike Roemer for The New York Times
Story by Ken Belson of the New York Times
GREEN BAY, Wis. — In any other place, they would be called souvenirs, documents suitable for framing, or even a sham. But here in the heart of Packers country, they are stock certificates that confer to the owner a microscopically thin and perhaps meaningless slice of the hometown team.
Richard Oliver has his stock certificate displayed in his home. “The only people buying them now are the people that want to be boastful," he said.
The Green Bay Packers are the only publicly owned team in the N.F.L., but the value of the shares they will soon offer to fans is almost strictly of the sentimental variety. They offer none of the privileges, or risks, of normal shares: they do not appreciate, are not traded on an exchange and produce no dividends. Owners get no discounts on tickets, although some merchandise is available only to shareholders.
Perhaps the biggest benefit is that they get to attend the annual shareholders’ meeting, where they can vote on new board members and pepper management with questions.
Yet with the economy flirting with recession and more than 4.75 million shares outstanding, the Packers, who already have 112,264 shareholders, are confident that their fans will line up by the thousands to buy shares again. And chances are they’re right.
In the coming weeks, the team expects to complete its offering of new shares. According to a filing with securities regulators in Utah, the Packers plan to issue shares for about $250 each. And fans who have closets full of Brett Favre jerseys and foam cheeseheads, as well as old stock certificates hanging on the wall, may well shell out hundreds of dollars for more shares, if only because they cannot resist the chance to support their team and indoctrinate the next generation.
“We live and breathe the Packers,” said Chuck Olsen, the owner of Olsen’s Piggly Wiggly, which does a big business selling bratwursts to tailgaters on game days. “Everyone wants to be part of this, so I’ll buy a share for my grandson, who is now 1 year old.”
The team hopes to raise at least $22 million after fees, about what was generated in 1997, the last time it sold shares. The money will help offset some of the $143 million needed to add as many as 7,000 seats and replace the scoreboard and sound system at Lambeau Field.
In an era when teams routinely beg, threaten and cajole their host cities into helping them build new stadiums, the Packers’ approach of asking their fans to contribute is refreshingly quaint. And something of a tradition.
The team’s fans are fiercely proud of the Packers’ publicly owned status, which dates to 1923 when Curly Lambeau and four local businessmen incorporated and sold 1,000 shares of the team at $5 each to keep it afloat. The Packers also issued stock not just in 1997, but also in 1950 and 1935 to bolster their sagging finances. Each time, fans snapped up the shares even though they were little more than a gift to the team.
Unlike the growing number of teams that require fans to pay tens of thousands of dollars for personal seat licenses before they can get season tickets, the Packers do not obligate anyone to buy shares. (The Packers do charge ticket holders a one-time user fee to help pay for renovations, but the prices are relatively modest and the fees are refunded if they give up their tickets.)
The ability to tap their fans’ seemingly bottomless good will has helped the Packers avoid some of the civic showdowns that have raged in other N.F.L. cities. In neighboring Minnesota, for instance, the Vikings have been negotiating for years with lawmakers, who are split on whether to help the team build a new stadium and how much the public should contribute.
Packers shareholders helped keep the team afloat for many years. But the championships of the 1960s and the N.F.L.’s decision to split its national television contracts evenly among all of its teams helped stabilize the Packers and keep them in Green Bay, the smallest city in the league.
Unlike teams in New York, Chicago and other big cities, the Packers have fewer well-heeled fans and companies that will spend money on naming rights deals, multimillion-dollar sponsorships and corporate suites. In 2000, just three years after the Packers won the Super Bowl, the team was the 23rd most valuable franchise in the N.F.L., according to Forbes magazine.
So the team used all the proceeds from its 1997 share sale and the revenue from a half-penny local sales tax increase in Brown County to pay for the expansion of Lambeau Field in 2003. With more seats, restaurants and a new team Hall of Fame, the Packers’ revenue and profits grew.
This year, with a 9-0 record after winning the Super Bowl last season, the Packers are the ninth most valuable franchise in the league, worth $1.089 billion, according to Forbes.
The Packers do not have to ask taxpayers for help this time. In addition to the share sale, the team expects to tap a capital improvement fund dedicated to upgrading the stadium, user fees from the newly added seats and loans from local banks and potentially the N.F.L.
“The Packers have gone to the public in the past when we were in trouble,” said Jason Wied, vice president and general counsel of the team, who oversees stadium development. “So to maintain our credibility, we are not going to the taxpayer. Our very survival is not at stake, and we can take on this capital project ourselves.”
This is a big relief to public officials. With consumers struggling to get by, and local governments slashing services, the last thing lawmakers want to do is debate whether to raise taxes to benefit a sports team, even one as beloved as the Packers.
“If it’s a priority, people find the money,” said Jim Schmitt, the mayor of Green Bay, who bought shares for his three daughters in 1997 and was vice chairman of the Lambeau Field Stadium Board when the county raised taxes last time. “You’re not going to see these at Target.”
In a town so devoted to one team, it is not surprising that fans like to brag about going to games, say, during the Vince Lombardi era, or rubbing shoulders with players like Bart Starr. There is also an informal pecking order of fans who own shares from earlier years.
In 1974, Richard Oliver acquired four shares issued in 1950 for $25 each from his wife’s aunt. The shares have since split 1,000 to one. But the original certificate hangs handsomely in his home office, where he sniffs at the notion of buying newer shares.
“The only people buying them now are the people that want to be boastful and say to their boys at the tavern, ‘I’ve got a share of the Packers,’ ” Oliver said. “There’s a certain amount of pride having the certificate.”
For Oliver, who ran a title business for many years, his shares were a calling card. He loved to attend annual meetings, which years ago were held in a room below a bowling alley across from the courthouse. Oliver recalls meeting players from the 1960s teams and legends like Tony Canadeo.
“It was a good old boys club,” he said. “We knew if we ever lost the Packers, it would be the death knell of the city of Green Bay.”
Annual meetings these days draw about 12,000 shareholders and guests at Lambeau Field at the end of July, and many of them tailgate beforehand. “They’re not doing that at I.B.M.,” Wied said.
Unlike a meeting at I.B.M., the annual Packers meeting elicits few questions about the team’s balance sheet. Instead, most concern the team and, this year, the league’s newly signed collective bargaining agreement. Some fans suggest ways to improve the stadium. Shareholders vote on a slate of about 15 board members, who are almost always elected with 99 percent of the vote.
All in all, it is a pretty tame affair, which is not unexpected for a team that has 92,000 names on its waiting list for tickets, or fans rabid enough to buy a piece of paper that calls them an owner. Perhaps, though, if fans hang on to their shares long enough, they will be able to resell them for a handsome profit.
Mike Worachek, who runs a collectibles shop not far from Lambeau Field, said a share issued in 1950 could fetch $2,000, while one from 1935 could bring in five times that amount. Their price will only rise when new shares are issued, he said.
Still, fans are so smitten with their shares that few change hands, Worachek said. And even fans who have shares are likely to buy new ones as well.
“There are a lot out there already, but Packers fans are funny,” he said.
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