Green Bay Packers

Founded:

1919

Stadium:

Lambeau Field

The Green Bay Packers is a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) North division. It is the third-oldest franchise in the NFL, dating back to 1919, and is the only non-profit, community-owned major league professional sports team based in the United States. Home games have been played at Lambeau Field since 1957. The Packers is the last of the "small town teams" which were common in the NFL during the 1920s and 30s. Founded in 1919 by Earl "Curly" Lambeau and George Whitney Calhoun, the franchise traces its lineage to other semi-professional teams in Green Bay dating back to 1896. Between 1919 and 1920, the Packers competed against other semi-pro clubs from around Wisconsin and the Midwest, before joining the American Professional Football Association (APFA), the forerunner of today's NFL, in 1921. Although Green Bay is by far the smallest major league professional sports market in North America, its local fan and media base extends 120 miles south into Milwaukee, where it played selected home games between 1933 and 1994. And despite its small market, Forbes ranked the Packers as the world's 26th most valuable sports franchise in 2016, with a value of $2.35 billion. The Packers have won 13 league championships, the most in NFL history, with nine pre-Super Bowl NFL titles in addition to four Super Bowl victories. The Packers won the first two Super Bowls in 1967 and 1968 and were the only NFL team to defeat the American Football League (AFL) prior to the AFL–NFL merger. The Vince Lombardi Trophy is named after the Packers' coach Lombardi, who guided them to their first two Super Bowls. Their two additional Super Bowl wins came in 1997 and 2011. The Packers are long-standing adversaries of the Chicago Bears, Minnesota Vikings, and Detroit Lions, who today comprise the NFL's NFC North division, and were formerly members of the NFC Central Division. The Bears–Packers rivalry is one of the oldest in NFL history, dating back to 1921.