The Green Bay Packers reported plummeting profits in 2019 after an unusually expensive fiscal year.
Although the Packers brought in a little over five percent more in total revenue over the 2019 fiscal year, the team took home less than $1 million in total profit, according to Bill Huber of Packer Report.
The Packers made $477.9 million in total revenue but spent $477.2 million, an increase of over $56 million and roughly 13 percent from the fiscal year in 2018.
The result was a 98 percent drop in profits. In 2018, the Packers reported profits of over $34 million.
Packers team president Mark Murphy pointed to four reasons for the rise in total expenses: Player contracts, a coaching change, the league’s concussion settlement and other expenses from the team’s year-long celebration of its 100-year anniversary.
Aaron Rodgers’ new contract, which included a record signing bonus, and a rare spending spree in free agency fueled the dramatic rise in player expenses, which accounted for roughly $30 million total.
The Packers also had to factor in the coaching change from Mike McCarthy to Matt LaFleur and the remaining balance on McCarthy’s contract, plus the teams’ contribution to the NFL’s $1.4 billion concussion settlement.
It all made for an expensive year in Titletown.
“I think in spite of the kind of, I would say, unique atypical financial expenses, I think the Packers are still in a very strong financial position,” Murphy told Daniel Kaplan of The Athletic.
Local revenue rose only slightly, likely the result of a two-year stretch of mediocre play and no playoffs in Green Bay.
Murphy told Kaplan the Packers still have at least $400 million in the team’s reserve fund.
