There are a variety of reasons why people pick sports teams as their number one.
Some people take on the teams of their parents or siblings. Some take on the team of their province and state.
The coolest thing about the NFL being outside of Canada is that I could pick any of the 32 teams to be a fan of for any reason.
There are numerous reasons why I’m a fan of the Packers (and very little of it has to do with players, stats and championships.)
Although, I am going to take a second and throw props to Brett Favre’s boyish charm, Aaron Rodger’s Canadian tuxedo – and the fact that the Packers have won 13 championship titles.
But those aren’t the main reasons why I’m a Packers fan.
Here are my top three reasons:
1. The Fans Own the Packers
The Packers are publicly owned – one of very few teams in North American sports.
They went public in 1923 with shares at $5 apiece. They’ve had four stock sales since then with the latest in 2011 where shares were priced at $250 (not that unreasonable). Today, there are more than 360,000 shareholders around the world.
There’s something really cool about a national sports team being supported by their fans and the public this way. If ever given the chance, it’d be a neat way to “own” and support the team.
Fun fact: As of January 2019, there were 137,000 names on the waiting list for season tickets. But you can will them to your family which they don’t come up for sale very often.
2. Packers fans volunteer to help shovel snow off the seats in winter
We all know how much I love winter.
When the snow falls late in the football season in Green Bay, the Packers look to the community for help. Thousands of people come out to shovel the snow off the aluminum benches and clear the field.
Packers supply the shovels and pay an hourly wage. How cool is that?
Not to mention how incredible the stadium is when it turns into a snowglobe. Absolutely magical.
3. The Stadium is (nearly) as big as Green Bay
You can’t beat the support of a small town!
All the feels from me on this one as I grew up in a small community of about a dozen people (but the surrounding farming community and neighbouring towns make it bigger).
The Packers stadium is one of the largest in the NFL seating 81,441 people. That’s not far off the entire population of Green Bay of 105,116 people. Meaning 80% of the entire town can fit inside the stadium.
The support and loyalty of smaller communities can be an amazing thing.
Who is your #1 NFL team and why did you pick them?
My favourite NFL team is the Patriots, I know cue the hate of them having won 6 Super Bowls in the past 19 years. The comments about Spygate and Deflategate and all the reasons why Tom Brady/ Bill Belichick are not the greatest of all time!
However, those are not my Top 3 reasons for becoming a Patriots fan, here they are:
Before the dominance of the 21st Century, the Pats were historically the doormats in the NFL. I love a true underdog story (probably from being a life-long Rider fan…lol) so if there was a team to jump on the bandwagon it was the slowest moving one, haha but that started to change in 1993…
Drew Bledsoe- I actually became a fan of the Patriots and the NFL on April 25, 1993 when the Pats drafted Bledsoe with the first overall pick. There was a lot of hype about Bledsoe coming out of college and talk about him taking the Pats to the playoffs and beyond. It was easy to get behind the underdog and the kid destined to lead them out of the basement which is exactly what he did getting the Pats to the 97 Super Bowl (lost to some team from Wisconsin…lol). Unfortunately Drew got hurt in 2001, and lost his job to a young QB destined for even greater things…Tom Brady and together they won New England first Super Bowl.
The Patriots are more than 1 City’s team or 1 State’s team…..they are the home team of 5 states and play out of the town of Foxborough with a pop of just over 16,000. On game day that population quadruples as fans gather at Gillette Stadium which seats 65,000+ fans. An exciting part of the game day experience is taking the Patriot Train from Boston, it’s a commuter train that uses commuter and freight rail lines in between Boston and Foxborough packed with fans donning their Red, white and Blue! I had the opportunity to ride the train and see the Pats play in 2017….loved every minute of it!
Thanks for your post on why you are Packers fan! Enjoy the post-season run…..perhaps we’ll see a Packer-Patriot Super Bowl
Ah Mike so sorry to hear about your Patriots this weekend! Tough loss!
But I love all the reasons you shared about why they’re your favourite team! Always love a good underdog story (and I didn’t know that!) Thanks for taking the time to comment and share that with me! (Also didn’t know they played out of such a small town either!)