GREEN BAY – The Green Bay Packers and the city of Green Bay have very different views of what a new Lambeau Field lease should include. In fact, they appear even to disagree on the existing lease.
In addition to arguing about the lease, their animosity now has spilled over into other issues, although it does not appear to have affected planning for the NFL draft, which Green Bay will host on April 24-26.
On Thursday, the Packers filed a lawsuit against the city over the relocation of the Packers Heritage Trail Plaza in downtown Green Bay. The plaza relocation is an issue separate from the lease, but it is a further sign of the growing tension between the parties.
Who are the parties to the Lambeau Field lease?
The city of Green Bay and the Green Bay/Brown County Professional Football Stadium District are the landlords; the Green Bay Packers are the tenant.
What do the Packers want from a new lease?
The Packers proposed an up to 30-year extension that would provide the city with an annual payment of $1.157 million per year.
The current lease includes annual increases of 2.75%. The Packers proposed to keep that money and apply it to operations and maintenance costs for Lambeau Field. Currently, those costs are subsidized by a special fund that was a result of the half-percent sales tax that paid for the 2003 renovation. That fund is expected to be depleted by 2031.
The fund provided $16 million to the Packers in 2023-24 against $53 million in operations and maintenance costs.
In return, the Packers say they would request no taxpayer funding for more than $1.5 billion in improvements and maintenance they plan to pay for in order to keep up with the NFL’s ongoing stadiums arms race. The team spent more than $600 million after the 2003 renovation for upgrades and did so without public funding.
Taxpayer subsidies for stadiums since the Minnesota Vikings built U.S. Bank Stadium in 2016 total more than $6.6 billion, including money for the Milwaukee Bucks and Milwaukee Brewers.
What does a city want from a new lease?
The city said it does not want to get less money from an extended lease than it is getting now, wants to see the Packers invest more money in Green Bay, and seems to want more control over Lambeau Field. That’s based on the positions Mayor Eric Genrich expressed in a March Press-Gazette interview. The mayor did not respond to interview requests last week.
A statement issued in the name of Joseph Faulds, city chief of operations, said the lease has 18 years remaining and the Packers’ proposals would include a $30 million loss to the city.
The lease expires in eight years, not 18. The Packers have five two-year options to continue the current lease, but said it would be preposterous to assume the team would extend the lease as is. The team says the $30 million figure is based on the faulty assumption the current economic terms of the lease would continue until 2062.
The city said it rejected the three lease proposals from the Packers because they did not reflect more than a year’s worth of discussions. The city did not offer a counterproposal, but said it would consider an offer from the Packers that better represented those discussions. Then it suspended negotiations in January.
As a preliminary to restarting negotiations, Genrich wanted a face-to-face “clear the air” meeting with Packers President and CEO Mark Murphy. For the most part, subordinates conducted negotiations up to the point they were called off. The meeting was held on May 22 and a possible restart to talks was scheduled for Sept. 16, but the city canceled that meeting at the last minute.
Negotiations were conducted without the participation of the stadium district. The Packers said the city requested the district not be included because it ultimately wants the district to be disbanded. The Packers want to keep the district, in part, to keep politics at an arms length from stadium operations. Genrich indicated in the March interview that since Lambeau Field is one of the city’s most valuable assets, it should have more control.
As long as the current lease is in effect, the stadium district will continue because it is a party to the lease and cannot be disbanded unless all parties agree, which the Packers will not do.
What else don’t they agree on?
- The length of the existing lease. The team says the lease expires in eight years, the city says 18 years. But the city is including 10 years that are part of five two-year options to extend the lease granted to the team.
- The need to reach an agreement soon. The Packers say they are reluctant to spend money on the stadium, other than improvements needed for football operations, without a long-term lease. They want to have certainty before such issues as a new collective bargaining agreement with players comes up again in March 2031. They say if improvements are delayed, they will only cost more and will ultimately force the team to seek taxpayer funding. The Packers suspended $80 million worth of concourse renovations scheduled for the offseason. Genrich in March indicated there was no rush.
- The city’s rights under the lease. The city has begun asserting itself over rights it says it has under the lease, such as challenging the Packers right to sell assets, such as outdated and replaced railings in the bowl, or insisting that city metro fire department EMS crews be employed in the stadium on game days. The Packers said they had every right to sell the railings and they are not required to use city crews for on-the-field medical issues.
- Although it is a separate issue from the lease, the location of the Packers Heritage Trail Plaza, currently at Washington and Cherry streets in downtown Green Bay. The city wants to move it to make way for an apartment building. The Packers didn’t approve of suggested new locations and point out the current site was at the behest of the city. The Packers rejected those alternatives and suggested they could move the plaza to the Lambeau Field/Titletown area the day before the city canceled the Sept. 16 lease discussion meeting.
More: Packers irked with Green Bay mayor over latest delay in Lambeau Field lease negotiations
More: Packers sue city of Green Bay to halt move of Heritage Trail Plaza from current location
What’s next?
The Packers said they will negotiate with the stadium district and if an agreement is reached, it can be presented to the city. The stadium district, which was miffed about being left out of the earlier talks, signaled a willingness to talk to the Packers.
The Packers said draft planning continues and the city has committees and departments working on its part of the event, which is expected to have an attendance of 250,000 people and an economic impact of $90 million statewide and $20 million locally. Genrich said during the March interviews that lease issues would not get in the way of the draft.