Packers Season Ticket Waiting List Update 2020
The next post I am resurrecting from the drafts folder is my “annual” update on my place on the Green Bay Packers season ticket waiting list. For those who don’t know, Packers games at Lambeau Field have been sold since 1960 on a season ticket basis. Ever since then, people have been adding their names to the list in hopes of eventually getting the invitation to buy tickets. As of September 2019, the season ticket list had ~137,000 names according to the Green Bay Press-Gazette (Green Bay Packers waiting list down slightly; prices of coming games climb, Sept. 23, 2019).
It never occurred to my parents to add my name to the list when I was born, so I eventually added myself in 2005. Why I waited that long, I don’t know, but that first year I was 67,439. By 2017 I had climbed all the way up to 53,627. How far have I moved since then? Here are the postcards for 2018 and 2019 that the team sends out to everyone on the list to let us know our position.
My new position on the list is 51,767, a change of 1,860. That doesn’t sound so bad, but at this rate, it’s going to take me another 50+ years to get to the front of the line. Here’s a chart showing my progress.
I’m already 50+ now, so I’m not confident I’d be up for the trip to Green Bay to go to games when I’m a centenarian. Recent news might accelerate things though….
New CBA and Season Tickets
The new NFL collective bargaining agreement adds a 17th game to the season starting in 2021 or 2022 (the latter is more likely). With an odd number of games, half of the teams will play nine games at home, and the other half will play the usual eight. The expectation is that teams would alternate nine and eight home game seasons.
The Packers haven’t said anything about how they might incorporate that occasional extra game into the season ticket mix. The Packers have an different setup than other teams with games split between Green and Gold packages. These packages are a leftover from the days when the team played three home games (two regular season, one preseason) at County Stadium in Milwaukee every season. Green package holders have tickets for seven games (six regular, one preseason), and Gold package holders have the remaining three games (two regular, one preseason).
In a March 11, 2020, article in the Green Bay Press-Gazette, Richard Ryman (@RichRymanPG) put forward his idea for a third package that he called the “White” package (the third color in Packers uniforms along with green and gold). His idea is to take three regular season games from the Green package, add one to the Gold package, and add the remaining two games to the White package. The White package would get the extra home game in those seasons for a total of three home games, and in the alternative years, that third game would be a preseason game.
My Preference for Season Tickets
That plan makes a certain amount of sense, but I don’t see a lot of Green package holders willingly giving up those games. Which means there won’t be that many people on the waiting list who will get a chance to move up. I would like to see the Packers create a new package with just one game (one home or one preseason depending on the year) and give people on the list a choice:
- Stay on the list and keep waiting, or
- Take the one game package and leave the list
I expect you could wipe out a significant chunk of the waiting list, and give people like me who realistically could only get to Lambeau once a year a shot at actually getting tickets before we die.
I don’t expect we will hear anything from the team this year on what they might do. With the 2020 season still up in their due to the COVID-19 situation, I doubt that ninth home game that is still a year or two away is occupying much of their time. I’ll be here waiting patiently in the meantime, with my fellow 137,000 fans in line, and hoping for the best.
Go Pack Go!