I think this fits in nicely with the Lombardi story and Jerry Kramer's comments about the city of Green Bay:
Thom Loverro
Examiner Columnist
The Washington Redskins face the storied Green Bay Packers on Sunday at FedEx Field.
If it were, lets say 1925, then they may go on to face the Dayton Triangles and the Portsmouth Spartans. Back then, the Packers would actually be facing the Duluth Eskimos, the NFL franchise that eventually went belly up and whose remains were bought by Washington businessman George Preston Marshall, who turned them into the Boston Braves, who begat the Boston Redskins, who of course begat the team you all know and love here in Washington today.
But in its infancy, the NFL did not consist solely of big-market franchises. It was in towns like Pottsville, Pa., and Decatur, Ill., and other small Midwest and coal-mining towns.
But as it grew and evolved, the league left behind those small working-class cities for bigger markets, like Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington.
Except for Green Bay, Wis.
The Packers football club began in 1919 and joined the NFL in 1921. They not only have managed to survive all these years, but thrive both on and off the field as one of the most successful franchises in the NFL.
We take it for granted, but the existence of Sundays Redskins opponent, the Packers, remains one of the great sports stories in this country and worthy of marveling at from time to time.
Green Bay is ranked 268th in population among American cities, with 101,351 people according to currently available census figures. Pompano Beach, Fla., has more people. So does Frisco, Texas, and Gresham, Ore.
But that is city population numbers within city limits. Certainly there is more to Green Bay than those numbers. So lets look at population figures for metropolitan statistical areas.
Green Bay is ranked 152nd among MSAs Ocala, Fla., is a bigger MSA than Green Bay. So is Kingsport-Bristol, Tenn. Green Bay with 304,783 people barely beats out Charleston, W.Va., as a metropolitan statistical area.
Yet they have the most valued sports commodity a community could have an NFL team. Los Angeles doesnt even have an NFL franchise.
Buffalo ranked 70th as a city, with 270,240 people is the closest down the list to Green Bay. And every season Bills fans fear it could be their teams last in Buffalo, because of a dwindling fan base and lack of deep pockets in the business community. They have resorted to scheduling some home games at the Rogers Centre in Toronto as a means of survival.
Fans in Green Bay dont have to worry about that because they own the team the only non-profit, community-owned franchise in major American professional sports. They laid the groundwork for this in 1923, when the
articles of incorporation dictated that any proceeds from any sale by stockholders of the club would have to go to a local American Legion post to build a proper soldiers memorial. That made sure there was no financial incentive to sell the team, and it remains today owned by stockholders fans and operated by an elected executive committee.
Nearly 30 years ago, the NFL established ownership rules forbidding such an ownership structure, but the Packers were grandfathered in. Too bad, this should have been the blueprint for all American cities with sports franchises. It would have saved a lot of public extortion