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PORTSIDE CULTURE

IF YOU’RE A SOCIALIST, ROOT FOR THE GREEN BAY PACKERS  
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Josh Androsky
September 4, 2025
Jacobin [[link removed]]

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_ Let’s get one thing straight: the Green Bay Packers are the only
socialist team in the NFL. _

Israel Abanikanda #23 of the Green Bay Packers runs the ball during
the NFL Preseason 2025 game between the Green Bay Packers and the
Indianapolis Colts at Lucas Oil Stadium on August 16, 2025, in
Indianapolis, Indiana. , (Michael Hickey / Getty Images)

 

Every day, when I get home from work
I feel so frustrated, the boss is a jerk,
And I get my sticks and go out to the shed,
And I pound on that drum like it was the boss’s head.

“Bang the Drum All Day” by Todd Rundgren (aka the Green Bay
Packers touchdown song)

Each time they score, this verse in the Green Bay Packers’ touchdown
song reminds us of our weary plight clocking in and out of our
miserable jobs. But then, it also grants us the greatest wish known to
man: a vicarious opportunity to dunk on the enemy. To stand over him,
looking down into his eyes in a way that makes _him_ know
that _we_ know that his own children hate him. The Packers say to
us, “This week, the Chicago Bears are the drum. Let’s do to them
what you want to do to your boss.”

The catharsis that comes from watching your special guys do good at
sports is unparalleled. It’s pretend, but it feels real, much like a
crime wave in a city with progressive leadership. The Packers take it
one step further, blurring the line between emotion and reality by
being the only team in the National Football League (NFL) that’s
allowed to break the fourth wall. The players catapult into the
stands, quite literally into people’s laps, in a celebration known
as the Lambeau Leap — sharing the glory with fans in a collective
act of joy.

If you squint just right, the Green Bay Packers are the only socialist
team in the NFL, and for much more material reasons than outlined
above. Before you start, yes, there’s no ethical consumption under
capitalism. But there _is_ a difference between an _al
pastor_ burrito and Taco Bell.

For those of you who know nothing about sports, let this be a
primer. Rich nerds
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destroying the world. Therefore it is incumbent upon you to become
jocks or at least jock-passing. Because the jocks, especially in the
case of the Green Bay Packers, are doing a better job of teaching
Americans socialist values than your reading group.

Lesson 1: Solidarity

In 2011, the Packers were on top of the world: they had just come off
an improbable playoff run where they’d had to win every game on the
road, they beat an alleged rapist
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and Aaron Rodgers hadn’t yet introduced himself to a new teammate
by asking him
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9/11 was real.

But their home state of Wisconsin wasn’t doing so great. Scott
Walker, who was the governor of the state even though his vibe is more
“guy who’d cheat on his wife at a real estate convention,” was
just beginning his unconstitutional assault on the collective
bargaining rights of public sector workers.

A group of current and former Packers chose this moment, as newly
minted Super Bowl champs at the top of the American zeitgeist, to
stand in solidarity with teachers and nurses, saying
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We know that it is teamwork on and off the field that makes the
Packers and Wisconsin great. . . . When workers join together it
serves as a check on corporate power and helps ALL workers by raising
community standards. . . . These public workers are Wisconsin’s
champions every single day and we urge the Governor and the State
Legislature to not take away their rights.

Heisman Trophy winner and emotional leader of the team Charles Woodson
also spoke out
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It is an honor for me to play for the Super Bowl Champion Green Bay
Packers and be a part of the Green Bay and Wisconsin communities. I am
also honored as a member of the NFL Players Association to stand
together with working families of Wisconsin and organized labor in
their fight against this attempt to hurt them by targeting unions.

Lesson 2: Public Ownership

Many teams in major American professional sports _get_ publicly
owned, like the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl. But only the
Green Bay Packers _are_ publicly owned.

They operate as a nonprofit by selling shares to fans on terms that
would make a Wall Street executive kill himself: no dividends; no
reselling of stocks; they only sell every ten to twenty years when
they want to renovate the field or otherwise put more money into the
institution itself; and no single person can own more than 5 percent
of the team. And when they say nonprofit, they mean it. There is no
majority shareholder hoarding wealth —  no gods, no owners.

Every single other team is owned by some idiot who knocked up a
Walmart heiress or by a tech billionaire who can’t stop throwing
drinks in people’s faces like a _Vanderpump_ bit player, and if
you’re lucky enough to have an owner who dies or has to resign
because he calls Joe Biden the N-word, your entire fandom is at the
whim of a faildaughter who needs to prove herself to daddy’s ghost
by firing people at random.

Every NFL fan basically lives as a subject under Habsburg rule:_ I
sure hope the next guy has all the chromosomes where they’re
supposed to be! _Except for Packers fans, who actually have a say in
who runs the team. Now granted, it’s a small say, but if the team
president or CEO spectacularly screwed up to the point where we needed
to get rid of him, we wouldn’t have to fly a plane
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the stadium begging him to do the right thing — we could just
organize to vote him out!

This also expresses itself on the field, which leads us to the
Packers’ third socialist teaching. . . .

Lesson 3: A Planned Economy

The NFL quarterback is the single most valuable and important position
in professional sports. To put it into leftist terms for you nerds,
they must have the brains of Karl Marx, the might of Vladimir Lenin,
the ruthless cunning of Joseph Stalin, and the ability to evade
attackers for as long as possible of Leon Trotsky. Forget good;
finding an even adequate starting quarterback is harder than finding
an ice pick in a haystack.

It makes teams and, more specifically, their owners lose their minds.
If you’re the general manager who picks the QB or the coach who
trains the QB, and that QB sucks through no fault of your own? Sorry!
Even if you’re great at your job, your owner will fire you because
he is addicted to scoring a good quarterback.

To put it in terms we can all relate to: my dad was so addicted to
sports betting that he stole my bar mitzvah money to pay off gambling
debts (true). This type of robbing Peter to pay Paul behavior destroys
teams (and families). Because if the owner is willing to blow up the
whole thing, then the people in charge of the roster and the coaching
operate out of fear. Everything becomes about short-term gains over
long-term vision. Another way to look at it is mortgage-backed
securities versus something like municipal bonds. One of these things
can make you a ton of money right away, but it can also tank the
entire economy.

The Packers have the luxury of time. There is no owner breathing down
anyone’s neck, so they can be methodical when it comes to team
building and structure. Famously the Packers have only had three
starting quarterbacks since the end of the Cold War. Why? Because they
have time and a long-as-hell leash. Both Aaron Rodgers and Jordan Love
were deeply unpopular draft picks who also happened to be incredible
values at the spots where they were drafted. Instead of being chained
to the present, the Packs’ braintrust saw that these dudes would be
needed in a few years to become true-blue franchise quarterbacks.

Most teams with traditional owners would have pressured the general
manager to draft someone that would help them Win Now, or forced the
coach to start the rookie way too early. After all, these are
for-profit ventures; we need butts in seats, and I need to make some
f-ing mon-ey. But the Packers’ sustainable model, which owes 100
percent to the fact that they’re publicly owned, lets them do the
right thing for the present _and_ the future.

The Green Bay Packers have been my favorite team for as long as I can
remember, and ultimately things like watching Jordan Love uncork a
hero ball are why, not some
spot-the-Illuminati-symbol-but-for-socialism thing. But there are some
real lessons here on how a professional sports team, possibly one of
the least human groups of humans, can make you feel involved while
putting a better product on the field. And those lessons are
surprisingly similar to the ones we’re trying to instill in our
communities. Go Pack Go.

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Contributors

Josh Androsky has spent the past decade blending socialist politics
with pop culture. He lives in Los Angeles.

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