How They Got Their Name: Green Bay Packers

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Definitely one of the most unique names in sports, the Green Bay Packers have a name that directly reflects their origin.  And that origin took place in 1919, when Green Bay local Earl “Curly” Lambeau formed a local football team to play against other amateur football teams in Wisconsin and Michigan.  Working at the local meatpacking plant, Indian Packing Company, Lambeau convinced the company to sponsor his football team.  With the sponsorship, the team was able to get uniforms (with the Indian Packing name on them) and use the company’s football field.  In the very first story written about them in the Green Bay Press-Gazette newspaper, the team was referred to as the Indians and the Packers, both referencing their sponsor.  Two days later in a follow-up story, they were referred to only as the Packers and the name stuck.

In early 1921, the Indian Packing Company was bought by Acme Packing Company and the team was briefly called the Acme Packers.  It was during this time that the team was granted a franchise in the American Professional Football Association, which was founded a year earlier in Canton, Ohio, and would become the National Football League (NFL) in 1922.  The Acme Packers had only played one league game, however, when they decided to cut ties with the Acme Packing Company, thus the Green Bay Packers were born.  For a short while in 1923, in attempt to distance themselves from Acme, the team used other references and names when referring to themselves.  But fans, newspapers, and everyone else kept calling them the Packers, and the name has never changed.

Garett