By Kim Lavine

It’s time I let you in on a little secret about me. I’m a huge Green Bay Packer fan. I would say I’m the biggest Packer fan there is, but the loyalty and enthusiasm exhibited by Packer fans, in contrast to any other team in the NFL, is off the charts, ending somewhere in the certifiably crazy range. Why else would anyone risk the humiliation of wearing a huge foam piece of cheese on their head in public, or strip down to bare chest marked with a giant “G” in the middle of a blizzard at a game on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field in Green Bay.

So you can imagine my shock and disappointment when my son came home the other day and proclaimed to me that his new favorite team was the Dallas Cowboys! For those of you who don’t follow football, let me make this exceedingly clear. There is nobody—outside of the Chicago Bears—that Green Bay Packer Fans love to hate more than the Cowboys. In fact, the Cowboys—always flashy with a rich owner and players who love to boast—are the “Goliath” to the Green Bay Packers “David”—the NFL’s “country mouse,” where players mark their touchdowns by leaping into the arms of waiting fans in the stands. Tonight, the 10-1 Packers and the 10-1 Cowboys are facing off in the most important game of the season to see who will win their division and home field advantage in the playoffs, led by perhaps the greatest player to ever play the game, Brett Favre, who is having a historic, record-breaking year in an already storied career. And it’s a game almost no one in America will be able to see.

But this isn’t so much a story about football as it is a story about business. The first order of business was to make my son aware why it was his birthright to be a fan of the greatest football story in history—the Green Bay Packers.

If you’ve never been to Green Bay Wisconsin it would be impossible for you to understand the significance of having a major NFL team in, up until recently, an impossibly small, mostly rural farming community, where the cows outnumber people at least two to one. Football is a business, after all, one that demands uncountable millions in public tax dollars to support the building of stadiums. Despite this, the Packers have won more championships over their 80 year history than any team in pro football. How do you bring a national legacy to a farm community of 100,000 residents at it’s biggest? Through a public corporation issuing stock. That’s right. The Packers are the only team in the NFL owned by its fans.

But owning a piece of history is no bargain. Shares of Packer stock include voting rights, but the redemption price is minimal, no dividends are ever paid, the stock cannot appreciate in value, and there are no season ticket privileges associated with stock ownership. No shareholder is allowed to own more than 200,000 shares, a safeguard to ensure that no one individual is able to assume control of the club. Despite this, you have more chance of winning the Power Ball lottery than of buying Packer stock. Why? Because people own stock in the Packers as a matter of pride, rather than as an investment. This has consequently built the most lucrative football franchise in the NFL. Unlike Dallas, the Green Bay Packers are the quintessential definition of “America’s Team,” brought to an impossibly small market in the middle of the frozen tundra by the sheer passion of a couple of men who loved the game and the crazy loyalty of fans who did too. It brings tears to the eyes of Packer fans to witness the inspired playing of its quarterback Brett Favre this year, who besides arguably being the greatest player to ever play the game, embodies the spirit of the Packers so perfectly in his modest, blue-collar work ethic and unbridled, unadulterated love for the game.

So why isn’t America seeing the game on TV tonight? Unless you’re a subscriber to the NFL network, available in only a minority of homes, you won’t witness this historic game. There is a historic battle going on in the media industry across all platforms today, from TV to music to digital. Radiohead’s recent decision to take their newest CD direct to the people via digital download on the internet, circumventing any affiliation with a record label and the traditional channels of distribution that go along with it, is the cannonball being fired over the bow of the aircraft carrier that is traditional media. With more viewers watching amateur videos on YouTube than some shows on cable network at any given time, anything can and will happen in the coming years when it comes to the distribution of content. It’s a time of chaos where everything is up for grabs. Everyone’s trying to get control over “New Media,” and stake their claim on this wild frontier, including the NFL. So tonight’s game is just a battle in that war, as the NFL attempts to strong-arm cable operators to add the NFL network to their line-up, so that the NFL can bring under its control the distribution and viewing of all the games in the future through that network.

I’m just one of the thousands of pundits who are crying “foul” on this play today. After all, football is really just a business—isn’t it? That is, unless you’re a Green Bay Packer

fan.

Your Friend in the Business™

Kim Lavine

(Okay, I admit, I wrote this when Brett Favre was still with the Packers. Who would have ever imagined he would leave to play football somewhere else? I guess that's another lesson in following your passion, even if it means leaving behind loyalties, legacies and even family. I'll have to write about that some day.)

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Kim is the bestselling author of MOMMY MILLIONAIRE, President of Mommy Millionaire Media—a multi-media company focused on developing traditional and new media opportunities in publishing, TV, radio, social networking, and digital formats—and of Green Daisy—a lifestyle brand focused on balancing life with love™. Identified as America’s expert on inspirational business advice, Kim has appeared on The Today Show, Rachel Ray, NBC & ABC news, CNN,CNBC, NPR, Oprah & Friends Radio Network, LifetimeTV.com, and featured in USA Today, Country Living, Guideposts, Women's World, and American Babyto name a few. Kim is on a mission to empower people to follow their dreams, inspiring them with hope, honesty and faith.

"Everything begins with a search for something better--a dream, an idea, the
courage to face a challenge, and the passion to get it done.
You can do it.
Believe in yourself.
Change the rules.
Join the revolution."
From MOMMY MILLIONAIRE, by Kim Lavine