Packers begin Lambeau Field lease talks well ahead of deadline, but city of Green Bay puts them on hold
GREEN BAY – Talks between the Green Bay Packers and the city of Green Bay on a new lease agreement for Lambeau Field are on hold.
The lease doesn't expire for another nine years but the two sides started talking about a year ago.
Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich recently informed Packers President and CEO Mark Murphy that the city was done negotiating for now.
"The common council and I really had a consensus on saying, 'You know what, it probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense for us to continue talking if it doesn't seem like we're making a whole lot of progress,'" Genrich said. "In reality, what was offered to us was really a material step back from what the current agreement is."
Specifically, Genrich referred to annual payments from the Packers to the city and how that money is allocated, but the city has other points of interest as well. One concerns investments by the Packers in Green Bay and another is stadium availability for events other than Packers games.
The Packers have a different view of the matter. They are disappointed the city ceased negotiations and did not offer a counter proposal, said Aaron Popkey, Packers director of public affairs. He said the Packers offered the city a better deal than any other city in the NFL has had or can expect. They did not ask for public funding, agreed to assume operations and maintenance costs once the sales tax-funded portion of the that account is depleted, and agreed to invest in Green Bay where practicable.
As a result of suspension of talks, the Packers halted about $80 million in Lambeau construction projects that were planned for this summer. If not resumed soon, that construction could be delayed for at least two years because the Packers will host the NFL draft in 2025.
"We made a proposal. We want to be back at the table before any more harm gets done," Popkey said.
Genrich said it's up to the Packers as to when talks resume. "We've got the lease in place. The ball is really in the Packers' court. If they want to move forward with a new lease, they are going to have to provide us with a substantially improved offer," he said.
There are three parties to the lease, the Packers, the city and the Green Bay/Brown County Professional Football Stadium District, which was not directly involved in the talks between the Packers and city.
Lambeau lease includes payments with annual increases
The Lambeau Field lease expires in August 2033, but the team has five 2-year options to renew the deal, which means the lease could go until 2043. The team was asking for a new lease that would continue through 2062.
The Packers paid $1.157 million to the city for use of Lambeau Field in 2023, including $986,277 in rent and a $171,000 administrative fee. The lease includes annual increases of 2.75%. If the existing lease continues through 2042, the Packers will pay $1.6 million, plus the administrative fee, in the final year. From now until 2043, the team would pay the city about $29.1 million, including the administrative fee, which increases annually based on the Consumer Price Index.
The Packers' proposal would make the administrative fee part of annual rent, subjecting it to the 2.75% annual increase. The proposal was for the city to receive a static $1.157 million per year, with the annual 2.75% increase going to the operations and maintenance fund, which currently provides the Packers more than $13 million annually. About $8 million of that is from a Lambeau Field ticket tax and $5 million from the sales tax escrow. The sales tax portion of that fund is expected to be depleted by 2031.
The Packers reported operations and maintenance expenses of $41.6 million in 2022.
Under the Packers' proposal, the city said it would receive $45 million through 2062, compared with $81.3 million under terms of the existing lease. The Packers would receive $36 million in total from the annual escalation, or an average of $1.2 million per year, compared with more than $5 million annually now.
Genrich said the Packers have known they would be on the hook for the operations and maintenance expenses when the sales tax money ran out and the city thinks shifting money it would be getting to that expense is not a good deal.
The Packers say keeping Lambeau Field, one of the oldest stadiums in the NFL, in like-new condition is expensive, in addition to the ongoing capital improvements that keep it on par with the rest of the league. A long-term pause in construction could make it difficult to catch up and could lead to the Packers changing their stance on public funding.
"We are trying to stem that off and say, 'Let's get this done now. Let's keep investing,'" Popkey said. "We are not asking the city for anything. What we are trying to do is avoid having to ask for public money."
The team invested more than $1 billion in Lambeau Field in the last 24 years, including the 2003 renovation. That renovation, which cost $295 million, was paid for by a half-cent sales tax in Brown County. The tax was retired in 2015. The Packers made another $600 million-plus in investments in Lambeau Field without public funding.
More: Packers have invested $1 billion this century, thanks in large part to 2003 Lambeau renovation
The Packers estimate a minimum $1.5 billion investment will be needed over the next 30 years. "We'll pick that up and we'll take care of all capital improvements to 2052. We are saying it will be $1.5 billion, but we're sure it will be more than that," Popkey said. "We are willing to commit that right now and do it without any public money."
Public financing remains popular in Wisconsin and across the country
The Packers point out that American Family Insurance Field, home to the Milwaukee Brewers, will receive $500 million in taxpayer money over the next 30 years, including $365.8 million from the state, $67.5 million from Milwaukee County and $67.5 million from the city of Milwaukee. The Brewers committed $150 million.
The Milwaukee Bucks got $250 million in public money in 2016 for Fiserv Forum. The team has a 30-year lease.
Public funding across the NFL included $750 million in Las Vegas, $600 million in Baltimore, $850 million in Buffalo and an NFL record $1.2 billion in Nashville. The Kansas City Chiefs want $500 million in taxpayer assistance for an $800 million renovation of Arrowhead Stadium, and the Chicago Bears are playing off Chicago and Arlington Heights for a funding package yet to be determined.
Three of 19 stadiums built since 2000 — Gillette Stadium, MetLife Stadium and SoFi Stadium ― were built without public funding, according to The Buffalo News.
Genrich said the city would not be opposed to talking to the governor or Legislature about the importance of the Packers and possible taxpayer support.
Packers willing to invest in city, but want to have flexibility
The city wants the Packers to invest in Green Bay, beyond the stadium.
"We think a reasonable community benefits agreement would make a lot of sense," Genrich said. "We would love to see some joint development opportunities come to fruition within the city of Green Bay. The Titletown District is wonderful. It's on the other side of the street (in Ashwaubenon), so we'd like to see the Packers, along with the city and other local developers invest in the city proper."
The Packers said the city proposed they commit up to $150 million in investment in the city. The team is willing to invest, but doesn't want to be held to a specific amount over a given time.
"We'd love to invest in Green Bay," Popkey said. "We're not going to be real estate developers and go in and conceive of and take an entire project from start to finish. But if the city has some projects and it wants to lead, we'll invest money, we'll invest time, we'll do whatever we can to help."
Genrich suggested the team dip into its $500 million investment fund to pay for local development. The team referred to that fund by several names over the years, including its team preservation fund. The Packers say that money is essential to protect it from events such as a player lockout, strike or other disruption of the season. The Packers' total expenses in 2022-23 were $541.6 million.
The city would like to see Lambeau Field used more often
The lease allows the Packers to control when and how Lambeau Field is used for non-Packers events, such as concerts, college football games and soccer matches.
The city would like to see the stadium used more often. That's been a friction point since the beginning of the lease. The Packers pledged to host one major activity at the stadium per year whenever possible and have hosted a number of notable events. Among them, concerts by Kenny Chesney, Paul McCartney and Billy Joel, a college football game between Wisconsin and LSU, and a soccer friendly between Manchester City from England and Bayern Munich from Germany. The NFL Draft will be in Green Bay in 2025 and a Wisconsin-Notre Dame football game is scheduled for 2026.
"It seems to us and it seems to a lot of people in Green Bay that the Packers have the ability to plan and pull off some additional events. And we’d love to see that," Genrich said.
Concerts can be difficult to schedule within the available window. Because of concerns about field condition, the Packers avoid scheduling concerts after about mid-June. Football games and soccer matches can be during the season. The Wisconsin-Notre Dame game, for example, will be Sept. 5, 2026, between preseason and regular season Packers games. Games could be later in the season, too. The Wisconsin-Notre Dame game was originally scheduled for Oct. 19, 2020, but was moved because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I think from the community perspective — there's nearly consensus on this point — that there's more capacity for additional off-season events to take place at Lambeau. The economic and just community impact that those events have is pretty substantial," Genrich said.
The Packers said that if construction is delayed until after the draft, they might not be able to hold concerts in 2026 or 2027 because of construction. This year would not have been a problem for construction because they were unable to secure a concert.
Packers want an early agreement so they can cope with other issues
The Packers' urgency to come to an agreement now is driven by other timelines, especially the expiration of a collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Players Association. The current CBA expires in 2030.
"There's a tremendous amount of uncertainty that begins at least two years before the CBA negotiations and it gets really hard to justify (additional) investments at that period, too," Popkey said. "The challenge for us is we've got several more phases of capital improvements drawn up for the building and we are not in a position to make that investment unless we have a long-term lease."
Genrich said that with up to 19 years remaining on the current deal, the city doesn't feel compelled to get a new agreement now.
Packers pause some construction projects because of lease uncertainty
The Packers, who for more than a decade have had an active off-season construction program, put the brakes on $80 million of planned work this year, specifically the renovation of the stadium's lower concourse. Last year, the Packers gave the upper concourse a well-received facelift and planned the same for the larger lower concourse.
More: Lambeau Field upgrades designed to make stadium more user-friendly for Packers fans
Construction that will happen includes a scaled-back upgrade of the lower concourse and renovation of offices in the Lambeau Field Atrium that were vacated by football staff when their new offices were completed last year. That project started last year.
“We are going to start halting construction projects around Lambeau Field. We are going to finish the things that are going on now," Popkey said. "It's disappointing we won't have the fully-renovated concourse in time for the draft."
Lease negotiations won't affect NFL draft collaboration, mayor says
Genrich said the status of lease negotiations won't affect collaboration between the city and the Packers for the NFL Draft, which Green Bay will host from April 24-26, 2025. Murphy has said the draft will be the biggest event ever held in Green Bay.
More: NFL, Packers announce dates for 2025 draft at Lambeau Field in Green Bay
"From the city's point of view, this won't get in the way at all of the need to cooperate and work really closely together on draft planning and execution," Genrich said. "We are going to be collaborating on a whole host of things, as we always do."
Contact Richard Ryman at rryman@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @RichRymanPG, on Instagram at @rrymanPG or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/RichardRymanPG
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: City puts on hold new Lambeau Field lease negotiations with Packers
