When the NFL strike made Milwaukee County Stadium the Packers' home field — in 1982

During the 1982 season, the Green Bay Packers played more games in Milwaukee than they did in Green Bay. You could look it up. 

On Sept. 21 that year, NFL players went on strike over getting a bigger share of the booming sport's revenue. The strike began two weeks into the season, including the Packers' season-opener at Milwaukee's County Stadium against the Los Angeles Rams (the green and gold won, 35-23). 

When the strike ended 57 days later, the Packers started the "second" half of the season at County Stadium, too, on Nov. 21, against the Minnesota Vikings. 

How that would go was anyone's guess. As County Stadium crews scrambled to get the field ready, fans weren't exactly doing the Lambeau Leap. 

The Sunday before — Nov. 14, two days before the strike ended — The Milwaukee Journal reported that a survey of fans in Milwaukee and Green Bay showed that 65% said they didn't care if the NFL resumed play that season. 

According to the survey, the Milwaukee Brewers' pennant-winning season had helped ease the pain of losing the Packers. When asked, "If the Milwaukee Brewers had not been in the World Series this fall, would you have missed the Packer games more than you have?" 62% of those surveyed said yes. 

The relatively tepid interest in Packers football sparked concerns that not enough tickets would be sold for the Vikings game at County Stadium to prevent the telecast of the game from being blacked out.

Between sluggish demand and tickets returned by disgruntled fans, ticket sellers had about 3,000 tickets left to sell at noon Thursday, Nov. 18 — the deadline for when the team had to decide whether the game would be shown. On Friday, even though the ticket sales were still short, the Packers asked CBS to lift the blackout "in appreciation of the patience Packer fans have shown during the strike," The Journal reported Nov. 19. 

For the game on Sunday, an "unenthusiastic" crowd of 44,681 — with 4,799 no-shows and 5,000 unsold tickets, the Milwaukee Sentinel reported on Nov. 22, came to see the Packers thump the Vikings, 26-7. 

"We've been in churches that have been louder," William Janz wrote in a front-page column in the Sentinel on Nov. 22. "Maybe Packer fans simply forgot how to cheer during the strike. Maybe so many people stayed home because they thought the game would be as exciting as a New Year's Eve party where only yogurt was served. Maybe it'll take more than three touchdowns and two field goals to offset the hurt brought on many of us by eight weeks of yard work." 

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On the field, Vikings coach Bud Grant could tell something was missing: "The enthusiasm wasn't in the ballpark, even with the fans. Maybe because it was deer hunting season," The Journal's Chuck Salituro quoted him as saying in a Nov. 22 column. 

Packers offensive tackle Greg Koch put a positive spin on it in the same column: "Today the Packer fans proved to me that they're the best in the world. They showed a lot of class by not booing the players." 

The strike had wiped out five games that were to have been played at Lambeau Field that season. The Packers played again at County Stadium on Dec. 5, beating the Buffalo Bills, before traveling to Green Bay to play the team's lone regular-season game at Lambeau — and that turned out to be a 30-10 loss to the Detroit Lions. 

"They're mostly the Milwaukee Packers now," New York Times sportswriter Dave Anderson wrote in a story republished in the Nov. 26 Journal. 

Powered by their resilient quarterback, Lynn Dickey, and a running game led by Eddie Lee Ivery, the Packers finished the truncated 1982 season 5-3-1. 

Thanks to the NFL's rejiggered playoff system, the team returned to Lambeau on Jan. 8, 1983, where they finally won a game in Green Bay, throttling the St. Louis Cardinals, 41-16. (The Packers' postseason ended the following week with a 37-26 loss on the road to the Dallas Cowboys.) 

And with the Packers back in winning mode, the fans were back, too. 

"My reaction during the strike was I don't give a damn whether they come back," one Milwaukee Packer fan told The Journal's Rich Kirchen in a story on Nov. 22, 1982. "Now I say, 'Look, it's over with, so forget it.' "

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About This Feature 

Each Wednesday, Our Back Pages dips into the Journal Sentinel archives, sharing photos and stories from the past that connect, reflect and sometimes contradict the Milwaukee we know today. 

Special thanks and kudos go to senior multimedia designer Bill Schulz for finding many of the gems in the Journal Sentinel photo archives.