The Packers appear to be backing down in a long-standing dispute with Green Bay over Lambeau Field rent terms.
After repeatedly proposing a flat $1 million in rent annually, with no increases, the team has now proposed a 30-year lease that starts at $1 million in rent and increases by 2.75% per year—in line with what the city council and mayor had asked for.
The deal has not yet been agreed to as the sides continue to work out the non-financial terms. Particularly in dispute is the role of a third party, the Green Bay/Brown County Professional Football Stadium District.
Negotiations among the Packers, Green Bay mayor Eric Genrich, and the city council had grown heated this fall.
“It includes everything that they want in a deal, but nothing that benefits the taxpayers of the city of Green Bay,” Brian Johnson, the council’s president at the press conference, said of the Packers’ previous proposals. “The Packers have repeatedly reneged on their promise to provide revised terms that reflect our discussions.”
During Wednesday’s press conference, which included every council member donning Packers gear, the members said while saying the team misrepresented its lease situation in previous offers and didn’t properly account for the locals.
“This process has become untenable, as the Packers have already invested four years in discussions and submitted three proposals without receiving a single counter proposal,” the team said in a statement, via the Green Bay Press Gazette. “If this extension as proposed is unacceptable, the Packers will not engage in further discussions.”
A week ago, the Packers asked the Green Bay/Brown County Professional Football Stadium District to intervene in the dispute. (The team, city, and Stadium District co-own Lambeau.) The stadium is set to host the 2025 NFL draft in April.
Before Wednesday, talks between Packers CEO Mark Murphy and Genrich hadn’t resumed in months and the team said the delay caused it to halt $80 million offseason renovations to the stadium. The team wanted to keep its rent with Lambeau to $1 million per year for the next 30 years while proposing to cover all costs for the proposed $1.5 billion renovations instead of seeking taxpayer assistance.
Genrich and the city council want to remove the Stadium District’s authority over Lambeau matters, while the Packers’ proposal has it keeping influence over the length of the 30-year lease. According to Johnson and Genrich, the only thing the Stadium District needs to do is manage a Lambeau fund that is set to run out of money in 2031, and when the fund dries up, the district won’t be needed.
“Once that fund is depleted, to have the stadium board intervene in discussions between the Packers and the city when the city is the owner of the field doesn’t make any sense.” Johnson said. “Now, that said, I get why the Packers want to do it. Their concern is what if you have political motivations that get in the way of, obviously, a very big franchise? The city has agreed to put in guardrails to prevent that from happening. The Packers have rejected that.”
