What Would Bob Harlan Do? » Brats & Beer

Posted on January 29, 2008

By way of Can’t Stop The Bleeding, here’s a story that will make you thankful that the Green Bay Packers are a community-owned team.

Seattle SuperSonics owner Clay Bennett the other night got heckled — actually, not even that — by a fan at KeyArena. Shortly afterwards, the fan, a season ticket holder named Sam Kidder, was escorted out of the arena and told he would be banned from Sonics games if didn’t show more respect. If you’re unfamiliar with the situation, Bennett is trying to move the Sonics out of Seattle to Oklahoma City just a year or so after buying the team.

Contrast that account to Bob Harlan who everyday as Packers chairman and CEO personally answered phone calls and letters from fans who had questions and concerns about their favorite team. Obviously Harlan didn’t have to deal with questions of relocation, but I’m sure there were plenty of other issues that fans were upset about that he had to face head on. When the team campaigned for state funds for the Lambeau Field renovations, it was Harlan who went out to town meetings and community groups to sell the idea.

I’m not saying that private ownership is necessarily a bad thing, there are examples out there — the Rooney family in Pittsburgh comes to mind — of owners who appreciate what their team means to the community and try to do right by the fans. But clearly the fans are the ones who get the shaft when someone with a different agenda can swoop in and steal a team out from under them.

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