Green Bay Packers

The Green Bay Packers are one of the most storied franchises in all of sports, and their name goes straight to their roots. Founded in 1919 by Curly Lambeau and George Calhoun, the team took its name from the Indian Packing Company, where Lambeau worked. The company provided $500 for uniforms and equipment, and in return the new team was called the Packers. The name stuck, and over a century later, it remains a badge of pride.

The Indian Packing Company was part of Green Bay’s growing food industry. It specialised in canning and distributing meat products, particularly canned beef, and shipped them across the United States. Wisconsin, much like Chicago further down the coastline, was becoming a transit hub of for the produce of the Mid-West. The Erie Canal had linked the Great Lakes to the East Coast and suddenly all those city dwellers demanded all the agricultural goods it could produce. Indian Packing was a vital part of this industry - packaging, preserving, and moving goods from the Midwest to the nation. When the Packers took that name, it wasn’t just about football sponsorship: it was a direct link to the labourers who kept Green Bay alive. It made them their team.

Building on these links to the community is the Packer’s unique ownership model. They are the only publicly owned franchise in the NFL, held by thousands of shareholders who are fans, not billionaires. Decisions are made through a board of directors, and profits go back into the team and community. In an era of corporate takeovers and billionaire vanity projects, the Packers stand as a reminder of football’s small-town, communal roots. Green Bay, with a metro population of just over 300,000, is by far the smallest city to host a major pro sports team in the U.S. That makes the Packers’ survival — and success — a story of loyalty and community pride.

On the field, the Packers are giants of the game. Under coach Curly Lambeau, they won six NFL championships between 1929 and 1944. In the 1960s, under Vince Lombardi, they became a dynasty: five NFL titles in seven years, including the first two Super Bowls (1967 and 1968). Lombardi’s name now adorns the championship trophy itself. Later stars like Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers carried the team into the modern era, each winning a Super Bowl and cementing Green Bay’s legacy as a quarterback powerhouse.

Their home, Lambeau Field, opened in 1957, is itself hallowed ground. Known as the “Frozen Tundra”, it symbolises the toughness of Wisconsin winters and the resilience of its fans, who famously endure snow, wind, and sub-zero temperatures in green-and-gold parkas. Lambeau is more than a stadium — it’s a shrine to football itself.

And then there are the Cheeseheads. Wisconsin has long been the dairy capital of America, producing more cheese than any other state. Rival fans once used “cheesehead” as an insult, mocking Wisconsinites as farm folk. Instead of rejecting it, Packers fans embraced it. In 1987, a foam-rubber wedge of cheese was first worn at a Milwaukee Brewers game and quickly spread to Lambeau Field. Today, the yellow foam “Cheesehead” is one of the most famous fan symbols in the world. It remains a proud, humorous emblem of both Wisconsin’s dairy economy and Packers fandom. Similar imagery can be found in the Wisconsin state quarter coin, which features a cow, a round of cheese, and an ear of corn — icons of the same farming and dairy traditions that make Cheeseheads such a perfect fit.

Community-owned pride, meatpacking grit, dairyland humour, Lombardi discipline, and Lambeau tradition. Their “G” logo may be simple, but it represents the biggest heart in the NFL — proof that greatness can come from a factory town on the frozen banks of the Fox River.