Who Owns the Green Bay Packers?

The Green Bay Packers are owned by their fans. As of 2026, about 539,000 people hold shares in Green Bay Packers, Inc., the nonprofit corporation that has run the team since 1923, and no single person or family owns it.

I’m a lifelong Packers fan from Burlington, Wisconsin, and fans of other teams ask me about this more than anything else. Here’s the longer answer, from the first $5 shares sold in 1923 to the most recent stock sale, which closed in 2022.

How the Packers became a fan-owned team in 1923

In the early 1920s the Packers kept running out of money. In August 1923, a group of Green Bay businessmen formed the Green Bay Football Corporation and sold stock to people in town to keep the team alive.

Shares cost $5 each, and 1,109 of them were sold that first year. Andrew Turnbull, the publisher of the Green Bay Press-Gazette, was elected the corporation’s first president.

Who were the Hungry Five?

The Hungry Five is the nickname for the men who kept the early Packers going: Turnbull, grocer Lee Joannes, team doctor W. Webber Kelly, lawyer Gerald Clifford and Curly Lambeau. They got the name because they were known for asking people around town for money.

Packers team historian Cliff Christl credits Chicago Tribune sports editor Arch Ward with the name, from Ward’s 1946 book about the team. Christl has also written that Clifford didn’t join the board until 1929, so the five weren’t all there in 1923.

Every Packers stock sale

The Packers have held six stock sales, counting the first one in 1923. The 1923, 1935 and 1950 sales kept the team from going under. The 1997, 2011 and 2021 sales paid for work on Lambeau Field.

1935. A fan fell out of the stands at City Stadium and sued the team, and the corporation went into receivership after it lost the case. The team was reorganized, and new shares sold for $25 each, with 484 shares bought.

1950. Curly Lambeau coached through the 1949 season and then left Green Bay. The team was losing money, so it sold stock again at $25 a share, and fans bought 4,165 and a half shares. The half comes from nine people who paid $12.50 for half a share.

1997. By then the Packers had just 1,940 shareholders. Shares in the new sale cost $200, and 120,010 of them sold to 105,989 new shareholders, raising more than $24 million to rebuild Lambeau Field.

2011 to 2012. This sale ran from December 6, 2011, to February 29, 2012, at $250 a share. Fans bought more than 268,000 shares and more than 250,000 of them were new shareholders.

The team raised about $67 million, which paid for a Lambeau Field expansion that added about 6,600 seats in the south end zone.

2021 to 2022. The most recent sale ran from November 16, 2021, to February 25, 2022, at $300 a share. Fans bought more than 198,000 shares, and 176,160 of the buyers were new shareholders.

That sale raised $65.8 million for new video boards and concourse work at Lambeau.

How many shareholders do the Packers have?

The Packers list 538,967 stockholders holding about 5,204,625 shares as of 2026. When the team sent voting papers for the 2026 annual meeting, they went to more than 539,000 shareholders.

To keep anyone from taking control of the team, no one person can own more than 200,000 shares. That’s just under 4 percent of all the shares out there.

Can you buy Packers stock?

Only during a stock sale run by the team. Packers stock isn’t traded anywhere, and as of October 2026 the team hasn’t announced another sale since the one that closed in February 2022.

A share of Packers stock pays no dividends, and it doesn’t go up in value. You can’t sell it on the open market, and you can only transfer it to immediate family members.

It doesn’t come with season tickets either. I’m number 60,892 on the season-ticket waitlist, and a share wouldn’t move me up a single spot.

What you do get is a vote, mostly for the board of directors, and a seat at the annual shareholders meeting at Lambeau Field. The meeting is usually held in July, and the 2026 meeting was on July 27.

Shareholders can also buy merchandise that’s sold only to them.

Who runs the Packers?

The shareholders elect a board of directors, and the board picks a seven-member executive committee to oversee the team. The members of the executive committee aren’t paid for that work.

The president leads the executive committee, acts as the owner on league matters and represents the team at NFL meetings. As of 2026, Ed Policy holds that job as chairman, president and CEO. He took over from Mark Murphy at the 2025 annual meeting.

Why the NFL lets the Packers be fan-owned

NFL rules don’t allow a corporation like this one to own a team. The league requires an ownership group of no more than 32 people, with one controlling owner who holds at least 30 percent of the club.

The Packers were owned by their community long before those rules were written, so the league grandfathered them in. That makes Green Bay the only publicly owned team in the NFL.

How fan ownership keeps the team in Green Bay

Because of the 200,000-share limit, no one can buy enough stock to control the Packers and move them. If the corporation were ever dissolved, its articles of incorporation send what’s left to the Green Bay Packers Foundation, a charity, and shareholders would get nothing for their stock.

A 2008 Washington Times story said fan ownership is the only reason there’s still a team in Green Bay. As a fan, I’m glad it works that way, and I hope it never changes.

If you want to test what you just read, take the Who Owns the Packers quiz. For more on how the team got here, see the Packers history page.