GREEN BAY, Wis. – Eighteen years ago, when Mark Murphy took over as president of the Green Bay Packers, the NFL’s shared revenue per team was around $138 million. On Wednesday, a few days before Murphy officially retires and hands over control to new president Ed Policy, the Packers revealed that their shared national revenue from the previous fiscal year was $432.6 million. This comes a year after national revenue surpassed $400 million per team ($402.3 million) for the first time.
Green Bay’s finances are the only window into the NFL’s shared revenue numbers, as, being the only publicly owned team, the Packers must disclose their financial statements annually. With $432.6 million distributed to each of the 32 NFL teams, the league shared more than $13 billion in revenue from the previous fiscal year. Murphy, along with Maureen Smith (Packers CFO) and Karl Schmidt (treasurer of the team’s executive committee), shared the figures they will present to their shareholders during the annual shareholders’ meeting on Friday at Lambeau Field. Murphy indicated that national revenue accounts for approximately 60% of the Packers’ total revenue. “This is primarily due to the growth of national television agreements. The league seeks to grow at a rate of approximately 7% annually. Furthermore, I believe the league has done a good job of moving towards online streaming, but the vast majority of our national revenue comes from broadcast television,” explained Murphy. This helped the Packers’ operating earnings increase from $60.1 million to $83.7 million compared to the previous year. Local revenue, driven by hosting a ninth regular season home game since the league adopted a 17-game schedule, increased from $251.8 million to $286.4 million. The Packers’ corporate reserve fund also grew to $579 million, up from $536 million the previous year.“I remain amazed by the popularity of the NFL and the league’s ability to generate revenue. It’s impressive,” Murphy stated.
Mark Murphy
Because the Packers are publicly owned, with more than half a million shareholders, they cannot accept private equity investments as some teams have done to raise funds. According to the team, there are approximately 5,204,615 shares held by 539,029 shareholders, none of whom receive dividends. To prevent anyone from taking control of the team, no one person can own more than 200,000 shares.
Murphy stated that during his tenure, the Packers have invested $675 million in Lambeau Field and team facilities. A newly renovated locker room was unveiled this week.“We don’t have a wealthy owner with a lot of capital, so one of the things we’ve tried to do over the years is build up the corporate reserve fund. I think it’s especially important now with the ability of other teams to sell minority shares, as well as private equity up to 10% of their value,” Murphy concluded.
Mark Murphy
