Green Bay Packers

The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. The Packers are the third-oldest franchise in the NFL, established in 1919, and are the only non-profit, community-owned major league professional sports team based in the United States. Since 1957, home games have been played at Lambeau Field. They hold the record for the most wins in NFL history.

The Packers are the last of the "small-town teams" that were common in the NFL during the league's early days of the 1920s and 1930s. Founded in 1919 by Earl "Curly" Lambeau and George Whitney Calhoun, the franchise traces its lineage to other semi-professional teams in Green Bay dating back to 1896. Between 1919 and 1920, the Packers competed against other semi-pro clubs from around Wisconsin and the Midwest, before joining the American Professional Football Association (APFA), the forerunner of today's NFL, in 1921. In 1933, the Packers began playing part of their home slate in Milwaukee until changes at Lambeau Field in 1995 made it more lucrative to stay in Green Bay full-time; Milwaukee is still considered a home media market for the team. Although Green Bay is the smallest major league professional sports market in North America, Forbes ranked the Packers as the world's 27th-most-valuable sports franchise in 2019, with a value of $2.63 billion.

The Packers have won 13 league championships, the most in NFL history, with nine pre-Super Bowl NFL titles and four Super Bowl victories. The Packers, under coach Vince Lombardi, won the first two Super Bowls in 1966 and 1967; they were the only NFL team to defeat the American Football League (AFL) before the AFL–NFL merger. After Lombardi died, the Super Bowl trophy was named for him, but the team struggled through the 1970s and 1980s. The team's performance shifted after acquiring Brett Favre in 1992 and his eventual successor Aaron Rodgers in 2005, beginning a new ongoing era which has been characterized by consistent regular-season success, with 25 playoff appearances and two Super Bowl wins in 1996 and 2010, under head coaches Mike Holmgren and Mike McCarthy, respectively. In addition to the most wins, the Packers hold the second-highest win–loss record (.571) in NFL history, including both regular season and playoff games.

The Packers are longstanding adversaries of the Chicago Bears, Minnesota Vikings, and Detroit Lions, who today form the NFL's NFC North division (formerly known as the NFC Central Division). They have played more than 100 games against each of those teams, and have a winning overall record against all of them, a distinction only shared with the Kansas City Chiefs, Dallas Cowboys, and Miami Dolphins. The Bears–Packers rivalry is one of the oldest rivalries in U.S. professional sports history, dating to 1921. [edit]

The Green Bay Packers were organized on August 11, 1919, in the second-floor editorial rooms of the old Green Bay Press-Gazette building on Cherry Street in downtown Green Bay. The team was co-founded by Earl "Curly" Lambeau, a former star at Green Bay East High School who had played on Coach Knute Rockne's first team at the University of Notre Dame in 1918, and George Whitney Calhoun, city editor at the Press-Gazette and great-grandson of Daniel Whitney, founder of the city of Green Bay. The Indian Packing Company agreed to sponsor the team, giving the Packers their name. In 1921, the Packers were granted membership in the American Professional Football Association (APFA), the forerunner of today's NFL.

The Packers first played on small fields in Green Bay before moving to 6,000-seat City Stadium in 1925, which eventually expanded to 25,000 seats. On September 29, 1957, a modern $1,000,000 stadium with 32,150-seat capacity was dedicated, officially named Green Bay City Stadium. It was renamed Lambeau Field in 1965. From 1937 to 1994, the Packers played home games in two cities—five games at Lambeau Field and three at Milwaukee County Stadium—before moving exclusively to Lambeau Field.

Under coach Vince Lombardi, the Packers won the first two Super Bowls in 1966 and 1967. After Lombardi died, the Super Bowl trophy was named the Vince Lombardi Trophy in his honor. The team struggled through the 1970s and 1980s but rebounded with the acquisition of Brett Favre in 1992. Favre led the Packers to Super Bowl XXXI victory in 1996 under head coach Mike Holmgren. Aaron Rodgers, drafted in 2005, took over and led the team to Super Bowl XLV in 2010 under head coach Mike McCarthy. The current head coach, Matt LaFleur, set a franchise record by winning 13 games in his first season in 2019. [edit]