How 538,967 ‘owners’ — and one president — run the Packers

GREEN BAY, Wis. — There may be no person extra highly effective within the Green Bay Packers‘ group than the group president. But when Bob Harlan held that submit for 19 years and oversaw the franchise’s return to glory within the Nineties, he by no means masqueraded as Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft or another rich NFL proprietor.

And he made certain nobody who labored at 1265 Lombardi Ave. did both.

“I all the time instructed the folks on our workers: ‘Each time someone calls this group, bear in mind they personal the group, we do not,'” Harlan recalled lately.

And there are 538,967 of them who may choose up the telephone at any time and dial 920-569-7500.

Whether or not it is Harlan from 1989 to 2008, Mark Murphy since January 28, 2008, or the lately named Ed Coverage, who will take over in July 2025 after Murphy reaches the group president’s obligatory retirement age of 70, none of them will ever personal the Packers — regardless that the president primarily acts because the proprietor in terms of voting on NFL insurance policies.

Within the easiest of phrases, that is how the group within the smallest metropolis in American skilled sports activities operates as the one one with no controlling proprietor.

The Packers’ articles of incorporation prohibit any single individual from proudly owning greater than 200,000 shares — safety in opposition to somebody trying to manage the group.

In accordance with the Packers, there are some 5,204,625 shares of the group owned by the half-million-plus stockholders. The inventory pays no dividends and can’t be traded, due to this fact it has no market worth, although it may be transferred to a member of the family.

“There actually isn’t any mannequin for this aside from this,” stated Rick Chernick, a Inexperienced Bay enterprise proprietor who served on the Packers’ board of administrators from 1998 to 2022. “It isn’t just like the board dictates something day-to-day; they actually do not. The staff who report back to Mark and to the manager group, they’re those who do the lion’s share of the work. We’re similar to a sounding board and can take heed to what is going on on and make ideas and provides concepts.

“However it’s completely fascinating whenever you journey and also you say you are on the Packers’ board, folks say, ‘Who has a board?’ Baseball, basketball, hockey? None of them.”

THOUGH THE SHAREHOLDERS elect the board members, both on the annual assembly held in July at Lambeau Subject or by proxy, it isn’t precisely an open election. This yr, for instance, there are two candidates for 2 seats. As well as, there is just one candidate to switch outgoing govt committee member Susan Finco, who has reached the obligatory retirement age. One in all Finco’s final acts was to chair the search committee to choose Murphy’s alternative.

Murphy performed a robust position within the appointments, though there’s a committee of board members that means potential candidates. The board is basically composed of enterprise house owners and neighborhood leaders, however some have ties to the Packers and/or skilled or faculty athletics.

The present board of 43 administrators contains 4 former Packers gamers (LeRoy Butler, Johnnie Grey, George Koonce and Dexter McNabb), outstanding Wisconsin enterprise house owners and even a county circuit courtroom decide. From the board, seven — together with the group president — serve on the manager committee.

Previous board members embrace former Main League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig and former College of Wisconsin athletic director Pat Richter.

Board members obtain no monetary compensation. Nevertheless, the members of the manager committee usually journey to highway video games with the group and sit within the visiting house owners field.

“It is a totally different sort of board within the sense that it is actually a neighborhood board, it is made up of individuals from our state,” stated Richter, who served on the board from 1996 to 2011. “All people has a ardour for the Packers, and I feel that is the place it begins.

“Simply because folks have purchased groups or purchased into groups, the success of a group actually is dependent upon the kind of folks you have got working the group. They have been very lucky to convey good folks in there, reliable folks. The board is absolutely like a check-and-balance system so to talk, which is sweet. In the event you stated all these skilled groups have been publicly owned, that is the mannequin you’d find yourself with.”

SINCE THE TEAM was conceived by Curly Lambeau and native newspaperman George Whitney Calhoun in 1919, there have been six inventory gross sales — 1923, 1935, 1950, 1997, 2011 and 2022.

The early gross sales have been crucial simply to maintain the group in enterprise. The newer gross sales have been to enhance the group’s amenities, together with Lambeau Subject. Within the final sale, about 198,000 shares have been offered at $300 every for upgrades at Lambeau Subject, together with new videoboards and concourse enhancements.

Not one of the cash from inventory gross sales can be utilized to pay gamers, and all gross sales want league approval.

It was earlier than the 1997 sale when Harlan, for the one time throughout his presidency, stated he felt like an outsider among the many league’s different 31 house owners. Harlan wished to promote shares for $200 every to assist help the renovation of Lambeau Subject, a $295 million challenge that was funded largely by a half-percent gross sales tax in Brown County. The inventory sale, which added 105,989 new shareholders, accounted for simply $24 million of that whole.

After Harlan’s presentation to a small group of householders and the NFL’s finance committee, he left the room for the group to debate.

“Apparently, one of many house owners instructed the group, ‘Let’s get these goddamn farmers and their frozen tundra out of this league,'” Harlan stated. “One other proprietor got here as much as me the following morning and instructed me what occurred. After three journeys to the finance committee, I lastly did get approval.

‘[Steelers owner] Dan Rooney stood up and stated to the group, ‘Inexperienced Bay is essential to this league. I feel we have got to offer Bob the complete help or we’ll by no means get this carried out.’ And we ended up getting a unanimous vote on it. Aside from that one time, there was by no means a difficulty.”

Murphy, who oversaw two inventory gross sales, by no means felt any pushback.

“The newest one, [Cowboys owner] Jerry Jones got here as much as me and stated, ‘I would prefer to study a bit extra about this, it is a fairly whole lot,'” Murphy stated. “Now the league is taking a look at promoting non-public fairness. That is a means for groups to get money out.”

Since then, the NFL has held internal discussions about permitting non-public fairness cash to be invested into groups. The Packers wouldn’t have the ability to take such cash, in line with Murphy.

Nevertheless, the group has a reserve fund that Murphy stated final month was valued at $537 million. Murphy, who served because the athletic director at Northwestern and Colgate earlier than he was employed to run the Packers, likened that to a college’s endowment.

“Or it is the cash a deep-pockets proprietor has,” he stated.

“From a soccer standpoint, each resolution we make is: Is that this going to assist us win?” Murphy added. “We do not have an proprietor that is seeking to make a revenue or promote. We’re laser-focused on profitable.”

If there are downsides from a enterprise standpoint, Murphy would not see any.

“Clearly a number of our [financial] success is as a result of success of the league,” Murphy stated. “However most groups are all profitable financially.”

THE BOARD AND govt committee weren’t all the time as hands-off as they’re right now. Harlan made a big change after he took over as president in 1989 by distancing the manager committee from soccer choices.

Had that not occurred, he believes he would have by no means landed future Professional Soccer Corridor of Fame govt Ron Wolf as basic supervisor in 1991. Wolf had turned down the job 4 years earlier, partially, in line with Harlan, as a result of he didn’t wish to reply to soccer outsiders on the committee.

Up to now, members of the manager committee meddled in soccer affairs and choices. Workforce historian Cliff Christl wrote in 2021 that “[Vince] Lombardi and the three earlier coaches who adopted Curly Lambeau had all been chosen by the manager committee.”

Interference continued after Lombardi’s departure in 1969, though Christl also wrote in 2018 that he “would not blame the manager committee any greater than the coaches or gamers for a way dangerous issues obtained. On the identical time, that is the place I would begin as a result of the committee was 0-for-4 when it got here to hiring coaches.”

Harlan’s coverage was to rent soccer folks to make soccer choices. He employed Wolf in 1991. Wolf employed coach Mike Holmgren in 1992. And the Packers gained Tremendous Bowl XXXI after the 1996 season.

“We needed to change the way in which we did enterprise,” Harlan stated. “We needed to get everyone on the board and everyone on the manager committee to again off. So I went to the manager committee and instructed them that we’ve got obtained to get the manager committee and the board of administrators to again off from being concerned in soccer choices. We endured 24 years of dangerous soccer [after the Lombardi era], and fortuitously they did [agree to back off].”

Murphy continued that observe.

“If it wasn’t for Mark and his management and the way he runs issues, it most likely could be troublesome and there could possibly be some challenges,” present Packers GM Brian Gutekunst stated. “However due to him and the folks concerned, I feel it has been actually clean.”

THE ONLY MAJOR distinction within the construction right now is that Murphy, when he employed Gutekunst as basic supervisor in 2018, determined to have each the GM and the top coach report back to him. Up to now, the coach reported to the GM and the GM to the president.

Today, the one accountability Gutekunst has to the manager committee is to offer a soccer report at its month-to-month conferences. Entrance workplace sources from different groups have stated they envy Gutekunst for not having to reply to an proprietor.

“I feel there most likely is [envy],” Gutekunst stated. “I feel, simply, it is the flexibility to have the persistence we’re doing issues the precise means. However yeah, I feel there most likely is, and I do know there’s a number of pleasure in our group in how we go about issues in that truth as properly.”

There’s motive to suppose that the manager committee and board of administrators will stay hands-off when Coverage turns into the eleventh president in group historical past a yr from now. Coverage, whose father, Carmen, served as president of each the 49ers and Browns, has been with the Packers since 2012 and has a full understanding of how the group capabilities.

“The entire story of this group is nearly like fiction to me,” Harlan stated. “The way in which it began, the way in which folks stepped ahead consistently to avoid wasting the franchise each time it was in hassle by passing the hat and having inventory gross sales, I feel it could actually work as a result of the individuals who have the inventory do respect the president. It is a distinctive scenario, nevertheless it does work very properly, I feel.”