Randy and I were both born in Green Bay. Randy’s brother still lives in the house they grew up in just a block off Ridge Road, 6 blocks from Lambeau Field.
Randy’s dad was a First Aid Manager for the Packers years and years ago, and Randy spent some quality kid time on that field when he was a boy, tagging along with his dad to games on Sunday afternoons. Later he sold hot dogs in the stands, he and I stole kisses beneath the bleachers of Lambeau when our same conference high schools played football games there in the early 1970s, and when we got married and lived our first few years in Green Bay, we both worked the concession stands during Packer games at Lambeau field. Now, I’m proud to say, Randy is an NFL owner by virtue of the fact he bought 1 share of Packers stock when they were raising money to expand the stadium back in 1997.
I joke that when you’re born and raised in Green Bay you swear allegiance to the Packers at the city limits, coming and going. Honestly, I’ve never met anyone who, born a Packer fan, changed their team preference later in life. They probably exist somewhere, but I’ve never met or heard of any.
Randy and I have lived all over the country, and even overseas for 3 years, in our nearly 47 years of marriage. No matter where we are, we look forward to football season. The last few years have been rocky for fans with football getting embroiled in politics, but even that couldn’t convince us to kick our life-long love of the game and the Packers to the curb.
Last year, when we moved to Florida, I thought we’d have a terrible time catching Packers games on TV. We had lousy internet so streaming wasn’t a viable option. To our surprise, our Florida realtor (from Puerto Rico), is a H.U.G.E. Packers fan. We had a blast together talking all things Packers. Even more surprisingly, the local FOX affiliate station managers in Fort Meyers must also be Packers fans. We saw 15 out of the 16 regular season games last season on the various channels we get with our free over-the-air antenna. Florida requires only rear auto license plates so the Packers plate on the front of our car leads to a lot of interesting conversations in parking lots with total strangers.
Pre-season starts next week. We upgraded our internet and I began looking at options for catching all the games again this year. It’s too much to hope we’ll see the majority of the games again by chance. So far I’ve found that the NFL Sunday Ticket is the only sure way to see them live but the cost is nearly $300. Alas, our love for seeing every Packers game live has a price, and it doesn’t reach those heights. I need to do a cost benefit analysis though. What is the break even point for watching them at a sports bar, where we may spend $75 or more per visit to watch a game? Hmmmm….put that way, break-even is only 4 games. And I would be much more comfortable and happy in my own living room eating my favorite (unfried) football food.
My brother Denny and his wife Marlene put their names and those of their 2 infants on the waiting list for Packers season tickets when their son was born in August 1990. Their wait list number was 10,418. In 2018 (28 years later!!) they were notified they could buy season tickets. That only became possible so quickly because of stadium expansion over the years. Denny tells people it was the ultimate lesson in deferred gratification. Today, he says, there are 130,000 people on the Packers season ticket wait list. Theoretically that means several generations will pass before you (or your heirs) will get a chance to buy season tickets. Here’s an entertaining 6-minute video discussing that issue. In the interest of truth and accuracy, there are about 38,000 current season ticket holders, 81,441 seats at Lambeau Field, and the wait list, as of May 2022 stands at about 140,000.
Denny and Marlene and their family have control over 8 Packers season tickets. The average price per seat per game is $128.50. Not to mention the one-time fee of a couple thousand bucks they paid to become season ticket holders. Suddenly, $300 per season to watch every Packer game live in my living room looks like a hell of a bargain.
P.S. If you’re a football fan, a visit to and tour of Lambeau Field should be on your bucket list. It’s an iconic place with an interesting and rich history. We grew up near the stadium so we never appreciated until recently the unique and legendary character it has. It’s the oldest stadium in the league and still has the original bowl seating beneath all the newer renovations. It retains its original name rather than selling out to the highest naming rights bidder. The community owns the team and the pride of that working class ownership (as opposed to the sterile ownership of one or a small group of rich investors) permeates Lambeau and the whole area around it. We’re proud to be die-hard, life-long, stock-owning, beer-drinking, brat-eating cheeseheads.
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