An impasse that the Green Bay Packers claim is holding up their plans to invest $1.5bn (£1.15bn/€1.38bn) into Lambeau Field appears set to end after the NFL franchise agreed to amend the terms of a proposed new lease deal.
The Packers have been at odds with the City of Green Bay over the terms of a new lease for their iconic home and earlier this month wrote to the Green Bay/Brown County Professional Football Stadium District requesting it to step in on discussions with Mayor Eric Genrich.
The Packers’ current lease deal at Lambeau Field expires in 2032, and the team is seeking a long-term extension to this agreement so it can press ahead with $1.5bn worth of upgrades to the stadium.
The team has said these upgrades would be carried out over the next 20 to 30 years and would not require taxpayer funding. The Packers said they first approached Genrich over lease discussions in 2020, with three subsequent lease proposals having been put forward since then.
The Packers had planned on carrying out a $80m upgrade to Lambeau Field’s lower concourse ahead of the new NFL season, but this was shelved following the breakdown of talks between the team and the City.
The Green Bay Press-Gazette said the Packers have five two-year options to extend the lease, which currently pays the City just over $1m per year. The team has now made a new proposal offering rent with the key addition of an annual escalator of 2.75% for 30 years, starting at a fee of around $1m.
The team said: “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. If this extension as proposed is unacceptable, the Packers will not engage in further discussions.”
Earlier, a Green Bay City Council meeting saw members line up to back Genrich in negotiations over a new lease, while also expressing their support for the team, an institution in the Wisconsin city. City Council President, Brian Johnson, said: “That’s football and this is business. We need to learn how to separate football from business.
“We understand why an extended lease is desired by the Packers. They want to make substantial investments in the stadium and they want to ensure that they have long-term control and that a future council doesn’t raise the rent after they made those investments. We think that is a very smart business decision on their part.”
Johnson went on to add the three previous proposals from the Packers had not “captured that agreed-upon language (in discussions)”. He stated: “It includes everything they want in a deal, but nothing that benefits the taxpayers of Green Bay. It is not in the best interests of the city taxpayers of Green Bay to accept the lease offer from the Packers that pays us less than what both parties previously agreed to.”
The Packers’ unique status as a publicly-owned NFL team makes it almost impossible that a relocation from Green Bay and Lambeau Field would take place.
