PACKERS: the Role Model?

The Milwaukee Brewers baseball team is typical of the problem in
profession sports. The owners have managed to play the various
cities off against each other in a kind of "musical chairs" game,
to pressure local government taxpayers into subsidizing the high
salaries of the athletes. See my web page file "Brewers" for the
details of just one example of the general problem.

But the Green Bay Packers stand out as the Role Model of how
professional sports could/should be organized.  While every other
city with a professional team has the problem of the owner moving
the team to greener pastures if the local government and
taxpayers resist their blackmail, only little Green Bay Wisconsin
need not be concerned. The Packers had (until recently) 1,915
owners, most of them local Wisconsin residents, and none with
more than 5% of the total team stock.

The recent change? The Packers decided to raise money for some
changes in their stadium (Lambeau field). The idea is to raise
$80 million for capital improvements, by selling 400,000 shares
of new stock for $200 apiece. And to use the money for a dome.

Now there is some debate about whether or not this is a good
idea. The traditional Packer fans don't want a dome. They claim
(with much logic) that the Pack has an advantage over other
teams, especially warm weather teams, when the game is played in
cold weather in Lambeau.  But at any rate with somewhere between
2000 and 400,000 owners who are mostly local, the Packers will be
the last team in professional sports to leave  for another city.

At any rate, the project sold "only" $24 million and the team 
now has "only" 105,989 new owners.

But compare that to any OTHER major league sports team. 

                     ,,,,,,,
_______________ooo___(_O O_)___ooo_______________
                       (_)
jim blair (jeblair@facstaff.wisc.edu) Madison Wisconsin
USA. This message was brought to you using biodegradable
     binary bits, and 100% recycled bandwidth.