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On Tuesday, the Cleveland Browns officially confirmed they will be moving off the lake and taking residence next to the airport in Brook Park. As is the growing trend in the NFL, the Browns' brand new stadium will be built for much more than just football.
These modern stadium complexes are profit churning machines — some selling out multiple times per week in the offseason. Portable fields and other advanced technology now allows these stadiums to sneak in concerts during the football season too. Lucas Oil Stadium hosted a WWE Royal Rumble in below freezing conditions in January. SoFi Stadium was occupied by K-Pop band BTS for three consecutive sold-out concerts just days before a Chargers home game.
This is the way forward for the NFL — the value of the league and its 32 franchises means cities are willing to fork out hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure each stadium is bigger and bolder than all which came before it.
Then there's the Green Bay Football Packers. And they don't give a damn about Olivia Rodrigo or whoever you've got to offer.
While the Packers and the city of Green Bay currently find themselves in a dispute over the upcoming lease expiration on Lambeau Field, neither side plans on parting ways anytime soon. The dispute will get ironed out and the Packers will remain in Lambeau Field for as long as the stadium is fit to accommodate NFL games.
Will Lambeau Field eventually become the last outdoor stadium in the league? Probably not. Some other franchise will likely refuse to conform to the modern norms of building a year-round entertainment venue. The Bills already have — in fact you could argue their upcoming stadium is the trial for lots of Northern teams like the Steelers, Patriots and Bengals who will eventually be asked questions about building new indoor complexes or sticking with their traditional roots.
30 years from now, I can envisage spectacular climate-controlled stadiums in major markets like New York, Philadelphia and Boston. It's less believable in places like Pittsburgh and Buffalo. But then again, you could've said the same about Cleveland!
It's also difficult to get a read on the lifespan of new-century stadiums. Lumen Field in Seattle was considered state of the art when it was opened and theoretically the Seahawks could play there forever. However, billionaire owners know they can build these stadiums with taxpayer money, so knocking down and building new (like we've seen in Atlanta) becomes a tempting proposition.
Lambeau Field shares traits with many blue-blood college football stadium. It could be renovated beyond recognition over the next 50 years, but it'll still always be Lambeau Field. I don't think a roof will ever be a real topic of conversation around future renovations, but a lot can change in a few decades.
We're all familiar with the mystical aura Lambeau Field possesses, but one must concede that in recent years the frozen advantage of Northern Wisconsin has lost some of its intrigue. No game was more damaging for Lambeau's reputation than the 2021 NFC Divisional Round, when the 49ers migrated from the temperate climate of California to completely outplay one of the best Packers teams in recent memory in frigid, near-blizzard conditions. One year prior, the tropical Tampa Bay Buccaneers knocked the Packers out in below-freezing conditions, albeit in an almost empty stadium.
The Packers haven't built a roster truly befitting of their climate in a long time. This can partly be explained by having a once-in-a-generation quarterback like Aaron Rodgers, whom they understandably surrounded with pass protecting technicians instead of run-first meathead bulldozers.
Let's set the scene in 30 years' time. Pro Football Hall of Famer Jordan Love is on color commentary for an NFC playoff game at Lambeau Field. Global warming has taken some of the bite out of the Wisconsin Winter, but it's still 25F on a standard January day in Green Bay. Their opponents are the Washington Commanders. They've been playing home games indoors for years now. Their divisional road games @ Dallas, New York and Philadelphia are all played indoors too. They played @ Houston, Indianapolis, Detroit, Minnesota and Las Vegas too. They are one of 7 NFL teams who didn't play a single outdoor game this season and must now travel to Green Bay to face the run-heavy Packers bullies when it matters most.
Perhaps that's a little too fantastical, but you get the picture. A league where teams play very few if any climate affected games is not that far-fetched anymore.
I think it's worth noting that college football is not moving indoors any time soon, and the Northern powerhouses of the Big 10 are not going anywhere either. There will be football played in the elements, and the younger players in the NFL will be well used to it from their collegiate careers. As for the veterans who have only played a handful of outdoor games in the past few years, well… they're veterans. They should be used to that sort of thing.
Unless the Packers actively build a roster deigned to thrive in Winter football, it's tough to imagine they will simply outclass their opponents in the elements. It's always going to be tough to sell your front office on the idea that you should draft and sign players solely to fit your pound-the-rock, hard as nails identity, especially when flashy players around the league are running rings around them in September and October.