N.F.L.|How Much Do N.F.L. Teams Make? Packers Fans Paid to Find Out.
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The Green Bay Packers are the only N.F.L. team whose fans can buy an ownership stake. Their annual shareholders meeting is part pep rally, part window into the league’s finances.
GREEN BAY, Wis. — It takes a certain type of Packers fan to tailgate outside Lambeau Field at sunrise months before the team’s season kicks off. But Tom Rozum isn’t an ordinary fan: He’s a Packers shareholder who last month was preparing to attend the team’s annual shareholder meeting, a rite unique to the N.F.L.’s only publicly owned team.
After Bloody Marys with family and friends, Rozum joined more than 8,000 other team shareholders in the stadium on a weekday morning last month to hear the Packers’ president, general manager and board members address the state of the fabled franchise.
“We can see where our money is going to,” joked Rozum, who lives nearby and circles the stadium daily to get to 10,000 steps. “Today, you can walk around like you own the place.”
Rozum’s shares, and those of the team’s other 539,000 shareholders, pay no dividends and cannot be traded. Their only benefits are a chance to buy shareholder-only swag and attending this two-hour annual meeting that is a cross between a dutiful accounting of the team, a pep rally and an inside joke.
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