In particular, in an age of freshly polished brands and unstable fashions, the Packers stand out as a beacon of old-fashioned values – family, community, loyalty, and hard work. For many of today’s college students, in a world that is highly competitive and fast-paced, the Packers are irresistible. Why would a small-town NFL franchise be so popular among today’s 20-somethings? Let’s look at some of the reasons.
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Community Ownership
But the Green Bay Packers, the only publicly owned NFL team in the US, have more than half a million owners. In a league filled with glitzy, single-owner franchises, thousands of citizens own part of their favorite team, their town’s favorite sons. That’s the power of community and mutual responsibility at work.
The idea of stewardship appeals to today’s college students as well, as evidenced by the causes – from climate change to social justice and gender equality – that so many young people embrace. College athletes and other collegiate teams can also embody a sense of shared responsibility and accountability that Packer Nation reflects. In an era of detachment and self-promotion, when so many students and other young people feel disenfranchised or powerless, Packer Nation reminds them that they too can participate in the legacy.
Tradition and Consistency
Tastes can change in a flash but the Packers stayed true to themselves. The team remains in the small city of its founding in 1919, a kind of visionary necessity in a growing world of ephemera. With such a constant in an ecstatically changing existence, it seemed, I could learn something about my own options and options in general: how a team could outlast its creation, the start of a franchise in a world where so many of the rest are up for grabs, where I myself as an undergrad was just figuring out what in the hell I was even going to do with my life. In a world of tidal and tumultuous change, the Packers were permanence, a vessel for people to show up and to keep showing up, fidelity in a world of telling ’em to beat it.
So many college students put in 40- or 50‑hour weeks at internships. Others play on sports teams or in bands and clubs. These Packers suggest a kind of organizational continuity that tells students: some things are worth doing for the long haul. Keep at it even when it’s hard or you get sacked because the rewards pay off in the end. During these busy times, many students rely on the best resume writing service to help balance their responsibilities and still meet academic deadlines.
A Culture of Hard Work
Unique to the NFL, the Packers don’t sign stars from major metropolitan areas because our fans won’t support that type of player, so we invest heavily in the draft or growing talent, and that character, that grit and loyalty, that’s what’s attractive to a lot of college kids who have developed a need to get good quickly.
Indeed, recent studies show that students are moving away from prizing organizations that stress early achievement to those that prioritize growth and maturity. For example, in one study, 60 percent of students would rather work at an internship or job that helps them grow and build a career than a position that pays more.
The notion that the best way to make career decisions is to think of yourself as a buyer rather than as a seller is analogous to the Green Bay Packers’ admonition: ‘Take your time, work hard, and develop talent.’ It is meant to nudge students toward making smaller decisions rather than bigger decisions, and to think of taking just one small step toward investing in one’s future.
Humble Beginnings
Nor is the Packers’ story a question of noblesse oblige. Green Bay is the smallest market in an NFL that, according to the game’s most famous (and most recent) president, Barack Obama, is, in essence, a cartel that creates an unfair playing field. It remains a classic underdog story with which many college students will, at least in part, identify. It’s not money or opportunity that makes for success.
Here’s a quick comparison between the Packers and teams from larger cities:
|
Team |
City Population |
Number of Super Bowl Wins |
|
Green Bay Packers |
107,000 |
4 |
|
New York Giants |
8.4 million |
4 |
|
Dallas Cowboys |
1.3 million |
5 |
But the fact that a squad from such a small town could claim, repeatedly, the peak of the sport proved that you didn’t need an iconic name and the big city to force your mark. A lesson that’s taking root with students slogging it out in the competitive arena.
Dedication to the Fans
One thing that is immensely popular with college kids is that the Packers are still very close to their fans. They play in a rather outdated open-air stadium, Lambeau Field, and they do not just put on a performance for the people with overpriced tickets in the box seats. They put on a show for all the fans — those who sit in the bleachers, the diehard fans who bought tickets, and those who watch on TV.
This skin-to-skin relationship with the Packers’s fan base is just what the doctor ordered for a society in which so many perceive a loss of connection with large corporations. It provides a message to collegiate, a reminder of the No-1 criterion for life success: follow thine bliss, regardless of the consequences.You may become a CEO and make money, a whole lot of it, but, no matter how much money you make, remember where you came from.
Team Before Ego
And college students today, growing up in an era in which people are competing to see who will be the next person to curate a personal brand and become a social media influencer, also see that self-promotion is important but that the narrative about players putting the team first is also valuable. The Packers have long been a team that embraced the idea of putting the team first more than the idea of individual stars.
No player is bigger than the team in thisPackers environment, a welcome antidote to the demands of academic and athletic hyper-competition that pressure students at every turn in the undergraduate experience. Learning to work together collaboratively towards shared goals, to take into consideration the needs of others, not just one’s self, are lessons that all students can gain from, particularly those trying to work within a culture that prides itself on lone-wolf individual achievement.
Financial Stability
Finally, at a general level, students find the Packers’ reputation for fiscal conservatism. Centuries of losing teach you not to overspend, and the Packers don’t try to do what other NFL teams do: overpay star players and take other risky financial moves in the hopes of glory or future growth. The Packers focus instead on being a well-managed organisation that will stand the test of time. At a time when so many students are entering adulthood with record levels of student debt, the Packers’ financial conservatism speaks to their concerns.
What it tells college students is that you can achieve success on the field without putting yourself in harm’s way, or paying more than you need to. You can do it by planning, setting priorities and budgeting.
Conclusion
In an era of swooning, disorienting change, the Green Bay Packers represent the deeper truth that doing it the right way is what wins. Hard work, community, loyalty and commitment: that’s the Packers, and those approaches to life, to business, are things that matter tremendously to today’s college students, as they craft their own lives amid unprecedented uncertainty. And, in the telling of their rep to the assembled crowd, the Packers’ commitment to their public, their place, their team-first ethic, have produced uncommon success that endures without selling out and betraying who they are. It isn’t about jumping on the crazy-quilt bandwagon of some new, trendy thing, chasing after the latest stardom. Do it the right way; be humble and work hard.
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