Green Bay Packers: Socialists, Maybe Communists, the Scourge of Capitalism

Editors note: this post was originally published January 18, 2008.

Green Bay Packer stock never paid a dividend, it cannot appreciate in value, and anyone who buys a share does it for sentiment, not their retirement.

In a few days the poor New York Giants will face the Green Bay Packers at frigid Lambeau Field. The team from the National Football League's largest market, that would be market as in free enterprise and capitalism, faces an over-the-hill quarterback, Brett Favre, and his band of youngsters.

This is the same Packers that sport the lowest median salary in the NFL at $440,520. The ousted Seattle Seahawks are at $959,200, the departed Dallas Cowboys are at $699,000, and those nasty Giants are at $724,000.

Somehow despite the small market, somehow without paying the highest salaries, somehow the Green Bay Packers will sit atop the National Football Conference Sunday night on their way to the biggest market share of the year, an appearance in the Super Bowl.

Based in a city of 100,000, the Packers are owned by 112,000 shareholders and the stock is worthless.

Packer stock has never paid a dividend, it cannot appreciate in value, and anyone who buys a share does it for sentiment, not their retirement.

It is a non-profit company.

The Green Bay Packers have won more Championships than any other NFL team and their total championships equals that of about half the league.

As Dave Sweet noted this week, Packers shareholders (all 112,000) are smiling:

...it all works — in fact, flourishes. The Packers offer more luxury suites, 166, than all but a handful of NFL teams.  This season, the Packers averaged more than 70,000 fans a game, 97 percent of Lambeau’s capacity. They are one of the top 10 NFL teams in terms of generating revenue, gathering more than $200 million in their last fiscal year. In addition, the Green Bay season-ticket wait list, at around 75,000 names, could fill Lambeau Field on its own with enough left over for a bustling tailgate party in the parking lot.

But if you asked Mark Belling, Charlie Sykes, and the rest of the free market New York Giant fans, they would tell you that, at best, the structure is stupid, at worst it is un-American.

I can just see them explaining to a twelve year old why this non-profit structure is wrong, it contradicts the American free enterprise system. Watch him look at you with incredulous eyes.

As Sweet noted, the kid may have an insight that right wing talk radio lacks, a human capacity to appreciate along with the rest of the fans that, "they will be looking for the best return on investment they can imagine — a trip to the Super Bowl."

Right wing talk radio has its ideology and its fanatical adherence to an uncompromising adherence to a free market system gone amuck except when it comes to showing some backbone and telling Wisconsin that the Packers should be sold to the highest bidder.

Squawk.

Addendum, February 7, 2011: For 2010 the Packers team salary is estimated at $94,018,300, fifth lowest in the NFL. The Oakland Raiders topped the list at $152 million followed by the Dallas Cowboys $146 million, the Vikings, the Browns, the Saints and then the Steelers at $128.8 million.

Comments

[Kris]

Uh, no. Conservatives would say that the Packers are like any other charity and that the free market and capitalism and smaller government puts more money into the hands of the people, who are then free to donate it to causes they support, like the Packers.

[Paul]

Thoughtful and logical point Kris, but it fails to recognize the Packers success. A charitable venture might survive, but it should not be able to compete in a capitalistic marketplace.

[Kris]

Well, with revenue sharing and a salary cap, the NFL is certainly not a capitalistic marketplace, is it? And while I'll rail against socialism and communism in government, I have a hard time doing so with the NFL, because, frankly, when it comes to football, apparently I'm a huge hypocrite ;-)

[Paul]

Kris....thank you. That is the point. There are some things we all love, especially our teams and then all the rules go out the window.

[Kris]

I get that, but it does continually offend me that conservative philosophy is painted as heartless, when in reality conservatives can be all for supporting non-profits and charities and the like - the difference is we believe we, rather than the government, should support them.

[Peter]

Kris, aren't "we" supposed to be our government? I would contend that modern conservativism has enshrined amongst its "principles" that organized wealth determines what our government does, be it tax favoritism, corporate subsidy, war-making for profit, and big business-focused market distortion. Were we to really have a functional democracy, "we" could make our choices on a public scale, democratically, instead of by virtue of who has enough disposable wealth to support a charity. On a somewhat related topic, charities are just that, charities. They are not entities that can largely target root causes of problems. Not that the Packers fall into that category, but the point is still relevant to the overall idea being expressed here. Free market slavishness is not the end all and be all of economic policy or democratic governance.

[Nate]

Actually the Packers have a real tie to socialism. In the early 1900's in addition to Milwaukee, Green Bay was the other main front on Sewer Socialism. The Green Bay Packers were a general extension of the socialist mood of the times.

Does any one really believe that if the Packers were an extension of the capitalist mood of their times, they'd be in Green Bay today. Wisconsin owes a debt of gratitude to the socialist visionaries of the early 20th century.

[Rick Esenberg]

Wrong! http://sharkandshepherd.blogspot.com/2008/01/green-and-gold-are-not-red.html

[kris]

g**amn Commies...

[Hiawatha]

I don't have all the facts on this Paul,
but it is worth noting that the Packers are by average age are the youngest team in the NFL.
http://www.packers.com/news/releases/2008/01/02/3
Scroll to the bottom of the page.

The Giants are truly a Great team.
I wish I could say it was a good game, but reality is that it was ridiculously cold.
It was a terrible game for both teams.

[Hiawatha]

Here's another interesting fact Paul,
According to the USA Today Salaries database,
The Packers had a total payroll this year of $ 97,653,823 .
The New York Giants had a total payroll this year of $ 75,755,388 .
The New England Patriots had a total payroll this year of $ 117,963,182 .
http://asp.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/salaries/totalpayroll.aspx?year=2007

I must point out though that the stats of your post indicate Median salaries, not average.
That's not bad, but it's only a piece of the whole picture.
Brett made $11,000,000 plus a $480 bonus ( xmas ?? ) for a total of $11,000,480 .

Hmmm... is there a mathematics statistics expert out there who can tell us more about this subject??

[Craig]

Lets be clear here - yes, the team was founded as a non-profit corporation. They are hardly a beacon of socialism. The team initially sold stock to get the necessary capital to operate. They've sold more stock several times to raise capital. You don't buy this stock to make a profit, you buy to be part of the team.

Being a conservative, I think the model works well in the American free enterprise system. Rather than begging for a government handout, Lambeau went to the private sector and sold investors on his idea. They all knew the stock would not appreciate, but they also got part ownership of the franchise. To those investors, that ownership stake is the highest return on their money.

Aside from the stock stuff, the Packers make hundreds of millions of dollar per year. They do so because they are part of a monopoly - the NFL. All in all, the Packers built from capitalism from the ground up.

There's one other basic tenent of free market capitalism you that is being distorted. If you own something, you are under no obligation to sell no matter how much you are being offered. No one has to sell anything.