How the Packers Kept Milwaukee a One-Team Town

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The AFL’s Boston Patriots and Houston Oilers in action. (The upstart league nearly expanded into Milwaukee.)

Today, the National Football League is as immovable part of American life, commerce and culture as the federal government or the church. But back in the 1960s, when players and stadiums came cheap and television was starting to pay big money to broadcast pro games, the idea of challenging the NFL’s monopoly on professional football was feasible. And that’s just what the American Football League, an eight-team upstart that began play in 1960, intended to do.

By 1964, the AFL was mostly established in places the 14-team NFL was not, with teams in Boston, Houston, Denver, San Diego, and Buffalo. Only the AFL’s New York Jets and Oakland Raiders encroached on NFL territory. But with a hearty new five-year $36 million television pact with NBC to begin for the ’64 season, the league felt confident in challenging the NFL more directly. Expansion proposals for the 1967 season included such cities as Washington, Chicago, Philadelphia and Milwaukee.

Milwaukee was a particularly interesting prospect. Although the Packers played three games per season at Milwaukee County Stadium, and had been the local favorite in the city for decades, the city was seen as a prime market for a new team. It was the 11th largest city in the nation and home to a dedicated sports fan base that was in process of being abandoned by the baseball Braves. An AFL franchise would give Milwaukeeans a team of their own to root for and would give County Stadium a permanent occupant. Real estate developer Marvin Fishman emerged, with a group of financial backers supporting him, as the lead bidder for a Milwaukee franchise.

One of Fishman’s major selling points on the city was that the AFL needed to be better represented in the heartland. The NFL had been born of the Midwest and sill dominated there, while the AFL had only the Kansas City Chiefs in the region. As for the Packers, Fishman insisted that the two leagues could co-exist in the city and the stadium. “We aren’t trying to chase the Packers out,” Fishman said. “This is a big city. It can support a seven game [AFL] schedule without disrupting a three game [Packers] schedule… There’s no reason in the world that the arrival of the AFL has to mean the departure of the NFL.”

By mid-1965, Fishman and company had given the AFL $900,000 in earnest money to be considered for expansion. And with the AFL’s plans to expand into Atlanta stymied by the birth of the NFL Falcons there, Milwaukee became one of the league’s primary targets for a new club. The only thing standing in their way was the Green Bay Packers.

The Packers had an exclusive lease on County Stadium for football purposes that ran through the 1968 season. When Fishman asked the Packers to waive this restriction, they refused. Packers coach and general manager Vince Lombardi said that Milwaukee was “a one team city.” The Packers even refused Fishman use of the stadium for an AFL exhibition game for 1966. The NFL was on the defensive and the Packers preferred to keep County Stadium empty rather than to chance a dent in their statewide fanbase.

While the matter still lingered, the NFL and AFL announced a merger that would become effective for the 1970 season, effectively ending any talk an expansion team in Milwaukee.

But the prospect of a pro football team to call Milwaukee home was not dead just yet. After the merger announcement, Fishman began to promote the idea of a Continental Football League team moving into Milwaukee. The CFL was centered in the east and in Canada and was trying to establish itself as a top football minor league. They had expansion plans for the 1967 season and Fishman wanted Milwaukee to be among the new clubs.

But once again, the Milwaukee county board deferred to the Packers. The CFL was a far lesser threat to the Packers. It was lower-level football, played on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday nights. But, in the midst of Fishman’s negotiations with the league, Lombardi personally flew to Milwaukee to sign a seven-year extension with the county for the exclusive use of County Stadium.

With rumors of a lawsuit against the board and Packers, Fishman declared that he had secured the rights to another local venue for a CFL team and was, in January 1967, awarded an expansion franchise by the league. The “mystery venue,” by process of elimination, must have been either Marquette Stadium or the old Dairy Bowl at State Fair Park. This was all moot for the time being, however, as Fishman announced that the Milwaukee team was pending the addition of another CFL team in Midwest to create a geographic rival for his new club. Aside from a team in Akron, Ohio, the CFL remained entrenched on coasts. By the time the league added teams in Chicago, Indianapolis, and Omaha for the 1968 season, however, Fishman had moved on to basketball, securing an expansion NBA franchise for the Milwaukee that would begin play later that year as the Bucks. The CFL folded following the 1969 season.