Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - Packer Plus
Murphy: NFL draft ‘likely’ for Green Bay
Green Bay — Packers President & CEO Mark Murphy did not guarantee an NFL draft for Green Bay at Monday’s annual shareholders meeting, but he tiptoed right up to the line.
He said Green Bay likely will host the draft in 2025 or 2027.
“We will be given strong consideration,” Murphy said at his post-meeting press conference. It was a not guarantee, but he said he was confident. “We’ve been close on the other ones, too.”
Green Bay has been angling to host the draft, which could bring hundreds of thousands of football fans to northeastern Wisconsin, for several years. The organization had high hopes for 2024, but the NFL chose Detroit. The Packers will not try for the draft in 2026 because it is scheduled to host a University of Wisconsin-Notre Dame football game that year.
Otherwise, the meeting was a pretty standard affair, which is a return to normal after two COVID-affected years. General Manager Brian Gutekunst went over the team’s roster and recounted highlights of last year, and Murphy had a few things to say about the football side of the operation before working through a list of community interactions and construction projects.
“I do want to give special mention to Davante Adams. He is as fine a person as you’ll ever see in the game,” Murphy said.
Adams, one of the Packers all-time best receivers, was traded to the Las Vegas Raiders during the off-season at his request.
The mention of Adams received applause and cheers from the 8,642 shareholders and guests in attendance. The turnout was a return to more traditional numbers after being down last year to less than 4,000, the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The meeting was held virtually in 2020.
Of course, the crowd also applauded a comment by Murphy about improving signs around Lambeau Field giving fans useful information.
“You’re a very easy crowd. You cheer for wayfinding signs,” Murphy said.
The Packers added 177,000 shareholders during a stock sale earlier this year, which may have increased attendance, as did a desire of people to act more normally, even though the pandemic is not over.
The stock sale netted the Packers $55.3 million, which will be used to install new video scoreboards for 2023 and continued renovation of concession stands. The new scoreboards will be quite a bit wider than the current boards.
Packers report record revenue for past year
The team reported a record $579 million in revenue for the 2021-22 fiscal year, which concluded at the end of March. It reported profit from operations of $77.7 million, also a record, and net income of $61.6 million.
The team reported national revenue, which is shared equally among all 32 NFL teams, of $347.2 million and local
revenue of $231.7 million.
Total expenses were $501.3 million, including player costs of $280.8 million.
The Packers invested $468 million in its operations during the past 11 years, not including Titletown.
Murphy said the Packers business interests, including the Titletown district, were performing well. He said the Titletown Flats apartment building was nearly two-thirds full and the U.S. Venture Center office building was 80% occupied.
The Packers are partners in Titletown Tech business innovation and development center with Microsoft.
“Some of the companies we’ve invested in could have the biggest impact of anything we’ve done,” he said.
Shareholders elected four new directors: Kate Burgess, CEO/owner of Elevate97 of Green Bay; Michael Daniels, president and CEO of Nicolet National Bank of Green Bay; Mark Rourke, CEO and president of Schneider National Inc. of Ashwaubenon; and Kurt Voss, owner and CEO of AmeriLux International of De Pere.
Directors moving to emeritus status are Rick Chernick, who joined the board in 1998; Larry McCarren, who joined in 2015; and Eric Torkelson, who was elected in 2019. All reached the mandatory retirement age of 70.
Man City-Bayern match provided ‘outstanding’ publicity
Murphy said the exhibition soccer match between Bayern Munich and Manchester City, two of the top teams in the world, was successful, despite several rain delays.
“The players loved the atmosphere and they loved the playing surface,” Murphy said.”(Fans) just had continuous smiles on their faces despite the weather. The publicity internationally for Green Bay and Lambeau Field was outstanding.”
The Packers reported attendance of 78,128, slightly more than the Packers’ average of 77,991 for last year’s regular season home games.