GREEN BAY – The Green Bay Packers invested more than $1 billion in Brown County in this century.
But in 2000, the NFL's most iconic stadium was an oval bowl with metal benches, some small offices and even smaller Pro Shop, and the whole surrounded by corrugated-metal walls. It was open 10 times a year. Today, the bowl and the benches remain, but everything else is different on what has grown to be a large campus open to the public year-round.
The franchise was in financial trouble as the last century wrapped up. Then-President and CEO Bob Harlan tackled the problem head-on, asking Brown County residents to approve a half-cent sales tax to pay for a total renovation of Lambeau Field.