Why the Green Bay Packers Are the Best Franchise in Sports

I am rerunning this article I originally wrote for The Frozen Tundra on MVN.com because I now work with a Bears fan who, despite his team being No. 2 in the league in my eyes, needed to be reminded of this...

1. The Packers pre-date the NFL. Only the Chicago Bears and Arizona Cardinals can also say that, and the Cardinals have moved twice since that date.

2. Were it not for the Packers, there would be no Chicago Bears. That's right. We bailed out our chief rivals financially during the depression.

3. It's in the smallest major professional sports market in North America.

4. It's community owned! There are no pompous, meddling owners. There are no worries about people selling the team for profit. Owners cannot earn more than the original $250 they invested, no matter how many years go by.

5. When the team needed renovation money, it was able to turn to fans first by selling more stock in the team, even though buyers had no chance of making profit (see No.6 below).

6. It's non-profit! No one is getting rich off the backs of fans. It's the only non-profit professional sports franchise in the world.

7. No one else can ever be non-profit in the NFL—it worked so well they banned it!

8. Twelve championships—'nuff said. Next closest team is the Chicago Bears (nine).

9. Five championships in seven years will never be duplicated.

10. It has the greatest coach of all-time.

11. The championship trophy is named after said coach.

12. It has the most storied stadium in the NFL.  Soldier Field is as well, if you include non-NFL events.

13. It has the coolest nickname for the field, from which we take the name of our blog. (Note: this referred to the original location of this post, MVN's The Frozen Tundra.)

14. Ice Bowl

15. Brett Favre

16. Only one losing season in the last 16 seasons.  The above-mentioned player has a lot to do with that, which is why if he is not in your top five of all time you are not allowed to speak to me. (Note: this is now two in the last 17.)

17. Don Hutson revolutionized the passing game.

18. Curly Lambeau put the NFL on the map. Red Grange deserves credit for keeping it alive—notice that all side credits go to my friends in Chicago?

19. Great nicknames like Johnny "Blood" McNally, The Minister of Defense, and The Golden Boy.

20. Has sold out every game, even during a long losing stretch, for decades on season tickets alone. In fact, if you want to get season tickets, you have to go to the back of a line thousands of people long, and only a handful of those names come up every year.

21. Thousands of people come to the stadium without hope of getting tickets just to be in the vicinity of greatness.

22. No team draws more of its own fans on the road.

23. Other teams have a hard time getting people to go to their pre-season games, much less sell 50,000 tickets to a scrimmage.

24. Shirtless fans in sub-zero weather—it's not the brightest thing to do, but how can players complain they are cold when they see such heartiness?

25. Others are copying the Cheesehead idea, such as the 49ers Breadheads.

Yeah, you thought this was gonna be a top ten, but I had to stop at 25 because I have work to do!