How the Green Bay Packers Got Started

On October twenty third, nineteen twenty, the ACME Packers football team, which is now known as the Green Bay Packers, played their very first game for the American Professional Football Association, which later became known as the NFL, facing off against the Minneapolis Mariners. They would go on to win seven to six, starting an historic franchise that is still around to this day. Located in the smallest city that hosts a professional sports team, and all goes back to how it all started, which we will cover today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide as you daily learn more about sports history, increasing your sports knowledge. And today's trivia question to listen out for is what company originally sponsored the Green Bay Packers. Now, in the early nineteen hundreds, football was dominated by college football. There were small leagues that popped up here and there, but really everyone was paying attention to the colleges. And after these players would be done playing in college, they would normally stop playing and move on to regular jobs, but a lot of them joined these local teams. They were city teams and they would play other cities, and they were not so much pro teams as just maybe kind of semi pro or just a group of guys that got together. They might make a little bit of money charging people to watch or getting a sponsorship, but it really wasn't a professional setting where you could make a full time living. And up in Green Bay there was a person. But in green Bay, Wisconsin, this was a place that loved its football. Now Green Bay is a town divided by a river, so there's an eastside in a west side, and there was an east Side high school and a west Side high school, and these two high schools were bitter rivals and whenever they played football, everyone in the town went to go see. And in the nineteen teens there was a player on the east Side that became a standout athlete and his name was Curly Lambeau, and Curley stood out. He even started as a freshman in high school and played all four years and helped East Side beat the West Side his senior year for the first time in a long time. But then when he graduated, he actually originally went to go try out for the University of Wisconsin, although he never went to any classes, and at this time, freshmen weren't allowed to play football, so maybe because of this rule, and because he didn't like it, he came back to Green Bay and started working in construction and would play football in local pickup games. Then the following year he would actually go to attend the University of Notre Dame, where he played for the legendary coach Rockney, and because he sat out a year, he was able to play for the team, and he was a standout even as a freshman. But unfortunately his sophomore year he contracted consulitis and ended up having to go home to the severe nature of it and took a job at the Indian Packing Company. And while he was there, he wanted to start well in these local city teams, and so he met with a newspaper writer in the area, George Whitney Calhoun, and together they put together a team, the green Bay City Team, and they were able to get a sponsor from the Indian Packing company that Curley was working for, and the team put up an Indian packing company gave them five hundred dollars for uniforms and equipment, but they required the team to be named after the company, so they were the Indian Packers and they would play their game at a local park called Hagermeister Park, which was a vacant lot just next to the East High School and there were no bleachers, so fans would have to stand on the sides and it was free because there was no fence or anything keeping anyone from getting in. So their first game was in nineteen nineteen on September fourteenth, where they played the Menonomi North End ac winning fifty three to zero, and this was a home game for them as they would only play three games away from green Bay this entire season, and they would end up going ten to one, only losing to the Beloit Ferries losing six to zero in a questionable game as this as this was in Beloit and they had a local ref calling very fast, favorable game with their local ref as Green Bay scored two touchdowns that were called back and prior to this game the lowest they had ever scored was thirty three points and the entire season they only gave up twelve points. They were a dominant team as Curley was good, but he was bringing other players to play for the team, and the following year they would be known as the Acme Packing Company, getting sponsored by Acme, a local company, and they would get the great idea to put a fence around the stadium. That way they could charge admission, allowing them to make a little bit of money from the season. And again they would have a great season, as they would go nine to one and one. The first game of the season was against the Chicago Boosters, which ended up being a three to three tie at home, and the one game they played away was in Beloit, again where they lost to the Beloit Ferries three to fourteen. Under similar circumstances, then in nineteen twenty one, they started having even more success. Because of their great success, they were able to join the American Professional Football Association, a new pro league that started with a lot of these city teams in this league would eventually change its name a year later to the National Football League, and we covered this league on a previous topic, but it had teams in Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Kentucky, and the league president was Jim Thorpe, who had already become a legend previously at the Olympics. But it wasn't until the fifth game of the season and that the Green Bay Packers actually played their very first American Professional Football Association game on October twenty third, nineteen twenty one, against the Minneapolis Mariners. They played four previous games. They actually beat the Beloitte Firies the week before, and this was a hard fought game. The Mariners took the lead six to zero and held it until the fourth quarter, but they fumbled at the thirty five yard line, allowing a short field for the Packers, who would eventually worked their way and run the ball in towards the end of the game and make their field goal, winning the game seven to six, winning their very first professional football game, starting and starting their win total, which today they had the most wins by a franchise in NFL history. Now, they would struggle a little bit more this season, as they would lose two games the next week to the Rockford Independence and one to the Chicago Stanleys, who later became their arch rivals the Chicago Bears. They would end the season seven two and two with the American Professional Football Association record of three two and one, and over the years they would continue to show great success, although they would struggle as many of these teams would struggle financially as it was hard to put together a team, and many of these teams couldn't afford an actual field, but the Packers did something unique as in nineteen twenty three they would sell shares of the team to allow this people in the city to help own part of the team. And this became known as common stock, which didn't include any interest recuity, and this is the stock that they still sell to this day. I am a current owner of one of these stocks, and you don't get any money from it. All you get is the chance to go to their shareholders meeting every summer and you get to vote on some of the executives for the team. These are not the coach or the GM or anything like that, and these are kind of the behind the scenes people, the kind of board member people, so really not people you would know or names you would know from this. And you can vote proxy or you can go up there every and it's kind of an interesting format as they are the only team in America to have this ownership structure, and it's really what saved them as it gave them capital to build out their stadium and make a stadium to entice more teams to come play them, and they would get more revenue from these games, and because of this ownership structure, unlike every other team in the NFL, they really cannot be moved. It has to be a unanimous vote to be moved, and no one's going to vote for that in green Bay. So Green Bay is the one team in the NFL that is almost guaranteed to never move, which is interesting because they have only a population of just over one hundred thousand, which is third in Wisconsin for the most population, but two hundred and twenty second in the United States. Most other professional football teams playing bigger markets because of their ownership structure, green Bay never had to do that, and they are one of the most successful teams. And it all goes back to them being so good, using their unique knowledge and being a good team to stick around through the years. And if you want to learn more about the Packers, check out The poor Man's Packers. Will you get all the information you need to know about what's going on with the Packers today and a fun and enjoyable package that comes out every week. And we'll put a link in the description for you to check them out. And if you enjoyed this episode of Daily Sports History, please share it with a friend. Hit that little share triangle button, send theem a text, send them a DM shout out from the rooftop. Come check out Daily Sports History and we'll come back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History. And did you catch the answer today's trivia question? What company originally sponsored the Green Bay Packers? That answer is the Indian packing company that Curly Lambo worked for. The required the team to be named after the company, which is how they are now known as the Packers.