The excitement is starting to build for the Cats’ 2015 campaign, a mere few months away; as the AFL season is getting ready to fire up, the NFL season here in America is winding down.
Cats’ captain Joel Selwood and Tom Hawkins are featured on the Cats’ website at the Denver Broncos recent playoff game (which they lost to the Indianapolis Colts). Both are kitted out in Bronco gear, which either means they are being polite, politically correct or are genuine Bronco fans.
As it comes down to the NFL’s semi-finals this upcoming weekend (for some reason, they are not called “preliminary finals”), the favored Seattle Seahawks, reigning Super Bowl champs, will host the Green Bay Packers, while the favored New England Patriots will host the wild-card Colts.
I’d like to make the case that Joel and Tom – along with the rest of the Geelong Cats, players, staff, members and fans alike – should throw their support behind the Green Bay Packers.
Green Bay not only shares the Cats rich tradition of sporting excellence, but – biased as I admittedly am – I would make the case that the Packers are to American football what the Cats are to AFL.
First of all the Packers and Cats are both two community-based teams. The Packers are unique in the multi-billion dollar industry of American sports. Sports teams are recognized as profit-oriented corporations in America and the NFL is the foremost among them: the NFL’s annual revenue is estimated to be close to $10 billion annually and the combined market value of the 32 teams in the league is estimated to be $46 billion.
Billionaire owners have no problem in trading upon fan loyalty to increase their profits even more. Yet fan loyalty in American professional sports is strictly a one-way street. Just look at the frequency of teams moving from one town to another just to get a better deal for ownership. Professional team moves in the USA are not analogous to the case of the South Melbourne Swans move, who were forced to leave for Sydney simply to survive. More often, it is a cynical case of big profits in existing markets not being enough when greater profits can be made elsewhere.
If there are greater profits to be found elsewhere, teams sometimes move on. And as is sometimes the case with spurned lovers, it can get fairly nasty. Fans in Baltimore never forgave late owner Robert Irsay for moving the Colts from Baltimore to Indianapolis in 1984. In Cleveland, people still hate the now-deceased Art Modell, who moved the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore in 1996, where they became the Baltimore Ravens. (In 1999, an expansion team, using the old Cleveland Browns name gave Cleveland back a pro football team). And in Brooklyn, some 56 years after baseball’s Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, there are still Brooklynites who have never forgiven the team for moving West, who are still bitter and still curse the modern-day Los Angeles Dodgers, despite the fact that the O’Malley family, who moved the Dodgers in 1958, sold the team in 1998.
After the Raiders moved back to Oakland and the Rams moved to St. Louis in 1994, Los Angeles has been without a professional NFL team for 20 years, though there is more recent talk about the St. Louis Rams moving back. In the meantime, Los Angeles has served the NFL owners well as a convenient destination threat for owners who want to pressure their current cities into investing in football stadia, luxury boxes, etc. That strategy has worked exceptionally well in getting local governments to cough up public funding and tax breaks. I can hear Al Pacino saying, “It’s just business.”
While there are still old Swans fans in Melbourne who have maintained their loyalty to the red and white, such a transfer of loyalty in connection with the move of US professional sports teams seems rare, if not non-existent. And can you blame the fans?
That’s what happens when loyalty is a one-way street, when dollars trump community.
Which brings me back to the Packers and to the absolute unique position they hold in all of American professional sports.
The Packers are the only community-owned franchise in all of the major American professional sports. In other words, like the Cats (and all the other AFL teams, for that matter), the Packers are owned by their members. Not by a billionaire. Not by a corporation. By the fans. By the community.
If the Packers were all about profits, they would have sought even greener pastures years ago, as more green can be generated in larger markets: Green Bay itself only has a population of slightly over 100,000 and is by far the smallest town in major American professional sports. Because of the sense of community and inclusivity, it’s also the best sports town, and the Packers will never move away from Green Bay. Knowing that is an absolute blessing to Packers fans (and owners) all over the United States and all over the globe.
The Packers have a storied history of excellence, much like Geelong’s. Names like Curly Lambeau (for whom the Packers’ legendary home stadium is named and which is as much a spiritual home for the team as KP is for the Cats), Vince Lombardi, Bart Starr, Paul Hornung, Brett Favre and now Aaron Rodgers loom as large for “cheeseheads” as Reg Hickey, Bob Davis, Polly Farmer, Gary Ablett and Joel Selwood do for the Cat faithful.
The Cats are the second oldest club in the AFL, while the Packers are the 3rd oldest in the NFL, having been established some 60 years after the Cats in 1919.
And the Packers have a wonderful tradition of winning, having won the first two Super Bowls under Lombardi in 1966 and 1967, with a total of 13 league championships, going back to 1929 -- with 1931 being a very good year for both Cats and Packers fans. The Packers most recently won the Super Bowl in 2010.
But it’s more than just the championships which make the Packers so special, just like with the Cats. As with the Cats, and completely unique within the world of American professional sports, the fans’ loyalty to the Packers is indeed reciprocated; it is not a one-way street.
In fact, the bylaws of the Packers state that the Packers are “a community project, intended to promote community welfare.” Unfortunately, instead of serving as a model of how American sports franchises should operate, the Packers are an exception, with the major sports leagues actually having banned the Packers ownership structure, in which the community – and not some rich dude -- owns the team (though the Packers have been grandfathered in). Instead, the Packers ownership structure should serve as a model, and the American sports leagues should rethink their ownership rules. The relationship of the Green Bay Packers with their fans is not just that of a customer or a patron but consists of a special connection with the entire Packers community, which is not geographically limited to Green Bay or Wisconsin.
The Geelong Cats and the Green Bay Packers share a special relationship with their respective communities, and much as there is a distinct “Geelong Way,” there is also a “Packers Way.” In short, the Green Bay Packers play American football the way it should be played. Considering their rich history, unique place in American sports, and their special relationship with their community, I think it’s fair to describe the Green Bay Packers as the NFL’s “greatest team of all.”
This Sunday the Packers face the heavily favored Seattle Seahawks, and while I’ll be wearing my cap with a big, beautiful “G” on it, I’m hoping there will be other GFC fans around the world shouting “Go, Pack, Go!” and maybe even “Carn the Packers!” And, when it comes to that, I’m guessing it shouldn’t be that difficult for the Cat pack to barrack against the Hawks.
