Profitable Pack plans for weak future Green Bay Packers' head coach and general manager Mike Sherman talks about this year's draft picks during the annual stockholders meeting Wednesday (photo by H. Marc Larson). The team says it's building its reserves for possible NFL changes By Ray Barrington News-Chronicle Victimized by giving up a first down on fourth-and-26 in the playoffs last year, the Green Bay Packers made it clear to their stockholders Wednesday they are doing everything they can to avoid facing long financial yardage. The team reported a profit of $20,770,754 for the year ending March 31, 2004, its first full season in a renovated Lambeau Field. Although the team did not have all of its atrium facilities in place for last fall's training camp, the lure of the refurbished stadium helped the team boost its revenues by almost $26 million, according to the balance sheet handed out at the meeting. The team's local revenue - money it gets other than the league's TV contracts and road-game ticket shares - increased by almost $19 million, enough to handle almost $20 million in increased expenses, most of that in player costs. The revenue side of the ledger didn't include the team's $2.14 million after-tax share of the expansion fee paid by the Houston Texans to enter the league. Team officials repeatedly told the stockholders they wanted to ensure the team's future while giving it the ability to get the players to win today. Vice president of player finance Andrew Brandt noted that the team ranked 19th in league spending on average over the last five years, but had gone from as low as 30th (in 2000) to fourth (the following year). He also noted that the Packers, who had been ninth in the league in revenues in 1997, had fallen to 20th in 2001, the first year of construction at Lambeau. It's been in 10th the last two years. "It's about where we want to be, in the second quarter of the league," Brandt said. But he emphasized the team's need to keep a strong cash reserve, now at $84.5 million. The team goal is to keep enough in reserve for a season's operations - and if that seems like a lot, says treasurer John Underwood, consider that Indianapolis recently gave quarterback Peyton Manning a $33 million signing bonus. The Packers doled out $113 million last season for salaries and team expenses. "Keep in mind cash is king in this business," Underwood said. Brandt and Harlan cited four things that could change in the next few years to cause problems - a new and possibly smaller network TV contract in 2005, the end of the current salary cap rules in 2006, the end of the current collective bargaining agreement with the players in 2007 and the last college draft under the current agreement in 2008. Harlan said he was hopeful the NFL could sign a newer, larger TV contract. Negotiations recently started with the networks. More than in recent years, the Packers emphasized their community ties, with a long presentation about the team's charitable output. "Up until the (stadium) referendum, we never talked one bit about what we do in the community," Harlan said. "Now, we've changed our approach." He said many fans - and others - still ask that question. "There was an editorial in the paper the other day that was wrong, that simply was wrong. I told the individual who was going to write the editorial before he wrote it he was wrong and sent him information, and he still chose to ignore it. But the information is there." He said NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue once asked him at a meeting to tell other owners about how he'd been asked by local residents what the Packers were doing for the community. "He said 'if people in Green Bay don't know what the Packers are doing, how will people in Chicago know what the Bears are doing?''" Harlan said. Speakers also noted the team's merchandising status, with its Packer Pro Shop one of the top-selling stores for any team in pro sports. Vice president of operations John Jones said the team had its hands full in operating the store and did not plan to expand to outside sales, except through its Web site. There were 2,691 people at the meeting inside the Resch Center, and the Packers had a surprise for them after the meeting - a tour of Lambeau Field including a chance to walk around the field and free ice cream to boot. "They said the tour was dynamite, so we have to come up with something for next year," he said. The team changed the format of this year's meeting, dropping the question-and-answer session that included fans publicly stating their questions over microphones in favor of an informal question time for Harlan and Sherman in which fans - er, stockholders - got to go up and talk to them after the meeting. Asked if the face-to-face contact, instead of the distance of a statement from inside the audience, might have caused the questions to be less pointed, Harlan said "I had some questions that were very pointed." He said only one person suggested going back to the old format. Actually, most of the comments Harlan got, he said, concerned the poor sound quality inside the Resch Center, which made the speakers difficult to hear. Harlan fielded a lot of requests for autographs, but also questions on why the season started so late (low TV ratings for Labor Day, Harlan said), the inability to park at the stadium because of all parking being taken by suiteholders and club seat users, and notices on season tickets possibly being taken away because of poor behavior. In a few short minutes, Harlan met with fans from Iowa, Florida and South Dakota, as well as Wisconsin and Upper Michigan. Harlan and Jones were available to answer questions from fans in the stadium tunnel following the tour.