By Greg Bates
Correspondent
GREEN BAY – Green Bay is known for its football – American football, that is.
However, this weekend, the European version of the time-honored sport will be invading Titletown for a first-of-its-kind match at Lambeau Field.
Two of Europe’s premier soccer teams – FC Bayern Munich and Manchester City – will face off during the soccer (as Americans call it) exhibition match at 6 p.m. Saturday, July 23 – an event Discover Green Bay President/CEO Brad Toll said helps give Green Bay and surrounding communities an extra economic boost.
“This is probably a crowd – we haven’t hosted a soccer game – that will be a little different from the typical Packers game,” he said. “But sports fans are sports fans and passionate about their teams. I’ve got someone that’s a fan of Munich in the office, so he’s been talking smack with people that probably don’t even know what he’s talking about.”
Toll said the fanbase will be different, which is exciting.
“Anytime you’re exposed to a whole new audience, there’s tons of potential for repeat visits,” he said. “Assuming they have a great time, which we’re going to work very hard to make sure that’s the case, they go back home and become ambassadors for your city and encourage people to come and visit us.”
Toll said he is as excited to showcase Green Bay to soccer fans, as the Packers are to host a new event in its historic stadium.
“I think it’s going to be good for us well beyond just the initial economic impact,” he said. “Gameday (for a Packers game) is typically 80,000, and anytime you’re drawing a crowd anything close to that, the economic impact is obviously huge.
Toll said those involved are expecting the impact to be in that $10 million range for an event like this.
“During the summer, typically, we’re pretty busy during the month of July, certainly the beginning of training camp comes along and the shareholders meeting, EAA is just down the road from us,” he said. “So to add this into the mix, July is really going to be an awesome month.”
Strong ticket sales
Packers Director of Public Affairs Aaron Popkey said ticket sales for the soccer match have been extremely strong – totaling more than 75,000 – proving that people from throughout the U.S., as well as international fans will be attending the match.
“We’ve got tickets sold all around the country, all 50 states and we’ve got a number of foreign countries,” Popkey said. “We definitely know we’ll have people traveling in, particularly from our border states — Illinois, Chicago area, Minnesota, Minneapolis area. Just (from) some real high-level ticket purchasing information, we know, we’ll have people coming from all over.”
He said that is exciting, for both the organization and the community.
“That was something we anticipated as this game was coming together and once the ticket purchasing began,” Popkey said. “We saw there was definitely a strong interest, which we had hoped.”
Popkey said there are still tickets available.
Other impacts
Toll said the thousands upon thousands of soccer fans traveling to Green Bay means hotels, restaurants, bars, gas stations, local shops – the list goes on – will all benefit financially.
“A home (Packers) game is typically a one- to two-night stay, but we average closer to two nights,” Toll said. “This one would be a little bit more challenging given we’ve got a big convention downtown, and there’s other things going on in the area. So it’s a little harder to attribute everything to this particular event, but we’re expecting probably $10 million from the soccer game. You love to see those visitor wallets out spending money.”
Home game replacement
The NFL schedule includes nine regular-season home games for NFC teams this season.
However, since Green Bay will be playing its first-ever game overseas – in London vs. the New York Jets Oct. 9 – the team is essentially losing a home game, which Popkey said can certainly cause a hit to Green Bay economy.
“We were hopeful that this would make up for some of that, not necessarily from our standpoint for revenue, but for the community,” Popkey said. “The estimated impact on a home game weekend is $15 million to the community in terms of hotels, food and beverage and hospitality, people taking in other attractions in the area. So with the soccer game, that will help make up for some of that, to what extent, I don’t know.”
Toll agreed the soccer match will be a nice filler for the missed Packers home game.
“It helps with that little boost,” he said. “A little bit unique this year, too, is we’ve got two regular-season games that are in January, so it sort of splits the season between 2022 and 2023. So certainly having this game in July is going to provide a great boost.”
Toll said he’s expecting an increase in foot traffic this week into the city’s visitor center, Discover Green Bay, currently located within sight of Lambeau Field.
Toll said he is looking forward to people stopping by to inquire about what there is to do in town in addition to the soccer match.
“People come in and we find they really want to talk to locals, and locals that actually know more about the community,” Toll said. “A lot of times, you go on your apps and whatnot where they rate restaurants, but we all know that those ratings a lot of time are influenced by advertising, and you can buy your way up lists very easily, whereas a local is typically going to tell it to you pretty straight. That’s where you find out about the old fashioneds and who has the best cheese curds and where the best perch is on Friday night. For a lot of visitors, what the heck is perch? It’s not typical on a menu, and why in the world would I order that? Those are the stories that you really learn when you’re talking to someone in a visitors center and getting the local scoop. You don’t want to go home and have someone ask you if you did this or did that and you didn’t even hear about it.”
Not its first
Popkey said Lambeau Field has grown accustomed to hosting large events over the years.
In 2006, a makeshift ice rink was created for the Frozen Tundra Hockey Classic, where the Wisconsin men’s hockey team faced Ohio State.
A decade later, Wisconsin and LSU clashed for the first college football game at Lambeau.
Over the years, the stadium has also held big-name concerts, including Paul McCartney in 2019, and Jake Owen in 2021.
Popkey said the Packers are hoping to give soccer fans an experience they won’t soon forget.
“For fans that come in, we want them to have that same high-level experience that we’ve put together for football fans,” he said.
Popkey said the organization takes great pride in the gameday experience it is able to provide Packers and NFL fans that come to the stadium.
“We want that same high-level experience to also be available to soccer fans that come in, just from the facility itself being a historic venue,” he said. “I think just anecdotally we’ve heard soccer fans who are excited to come to this type of venue that is revered and hallowed and on peoples’ bucket list for football games, but to now have a friendly soccer match between two of the best clubs in the world, that part’s exciting, too.”
Popkey said the game includes essentially the Super Bowl champion of Germany taking on the Super Bowl champion of the English Premier League.
“You’ve got the top teams from those leagues coming to play each other in a friendly match in Lambeau Field – all those elements are fantastic,” he said.