Publicly Owned Packers Make a Rare Leadership Change

A major leadership change for the Packers is unfolding, opening up a critical new era for a unique organization that is one of the most popular and influential in sports. 

The only publicly owned franchise in the NFL has set a July 25 date for its annual shareholders meeting at Lambeau Field, during which Ed Policy will formally become the team’s new chairman, president, and CEO. Policy, currently the Packers’ COO and general counsel, will succeed the outgoing Mark Murphy, who next month will turn 70 and reach a mandatory retirement age.

The transition has been planned for roughly a year and is aimed at being a continuity move, at least as much as possible. The shift, however, arrives as Green Bay just drew an attendance of 600,000 for the 2025 NFL Draft, tied for the event’s second-largest crowd, and the Packers remain keenly interested in keeping Green Bay as a destination for major league events.

Policy’s tenure will almost certainly include opt-outs of the league’s current TV contracts in 2029 and 2030, as well as negotiations with the NFL Players Association on a new labor deal—two events that will greatly shape the team’s future finances.

Policy, the son of former 49ers and Browns executive Carmen Policy, also played a key role in Titletown, the team’s mixed-use development and entertainment complex adjacent to Lambeau Field, and the Packers remain keenly interested in continuing to expand that.

“This is the absolute best job in sports,” the younger Policy said last year when the transition plan was first established. “We are the stewards of the most iconic and unique organization in all of professional sports. … We are the people’s team, and I love being a part of it.”

In advance of that annual meeting, the Packers are expected to make their customary financial report, and another set of figures at or near record levels remains quite possible given the ongoing growth of the league overall and the franchise specifically. Last year, the team said it generated $654 million in revenue for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024, an all-time high for the team, and $60.1 million in operating profit. 

International Flavor

One of the bigger changes likely to occur under Policy is a heightened global presence for the Packers and the team’s brand. Green Bay was among the last in the NFL to join the league’s Global Markets Program, gaining rights in late March to Germany, Ireland, and the U.K. 

During much of Murphy’s tenure of more than 17 years, the Packers did not show significant interest in playing internationally or doing business abroad—in part because of the disproportionately heavy impact any lost home game would have on the Green Bay market, by far the NFL’s smallest. The league, however, has made its global ambitions a fixture of its long-range growth plan, as seen in part by a record seven non-U.S. games in 2025. 

Additionally, the league has created a scheduling formula in which international contests are now pulled from a ninth home game each team has every other year, allowing a full slate of domestic home games intact.