GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) – The Green Bay Packers 2023 schedule is officially out.
A week one matchup against the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field and games on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and New Year’s Eve are some of the highlights according to the fans.
“As soon as I started scrolling, I saw that we were opening up at Soldier Field against the Bears, I think we’re going to win and it’s going to be fun to still upset Bears fans even though Aaron Rodgers already owned them,” said Packers fan Tom Bushkie.
“It looks like we start out with an easier schedule which will give Jordan Love a chance to try out his new players and maybe make the playoffs this year,” said Packers fan Joey Stachura.
The Packers begin and end the season with matchups against the Chicago Bears. Green Bay plays five games in primetime and play on Thursday twice, both times against the Detroit Lions. The defending Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs come to Lambeau Field on Dec. 3.
While fans usually analyze the schedule from a matchup standpoint, local business owners analyze the schedule in a different way.
“Sunday and Monday games are typically easiest for us to fill and we see the biggest amount of travelers coming into Green Bay, Thursday night is a little bit harder to fill,” said Ashley Kellam the general manager at Hotel Northland in downtown Green Bay.
Packers season is a busy time at the hotel and she said as soon as the schedule drops they’re busy fielding calls from people wanting to book rooms for games.
She said within the first two months after the schedule drop, the hotel is completely booked for about half the Packers home games. Usually, the early games get booked very quickly. She said fans sometimes cancel on the cold-weather games at the end of the season if the Packers season isn’t going well.
She said she also wished the Packers holiday games for next season would have been at home instead of on the road.
“We always love when home games fall over a holiday time frame just because Green Bay is generally very slow, so it’s a little bit of a disappointment that we won’t have that lifted demand,” said Kellam.
It’s a doubly exciting day on Thursday for the folks over at Stadium View. Not only is the Packers schedule out, but they also celebrated the grand reopening of their newly renovated event hall.
Stadium View manager Amber Wrona said as soon as the schedule dropped, people were calling wanting to book space at their building for their game day events next season.
“All games are really busy here it kind of comes down to how long people have been partying whether it’s a noon game, 3:25 game or night game,” said Wrona.
Wrona said that how the Packers are doing on the field doesn’t impact crowd size on gameday too much. Rather it impacts the type of people who visit the bar. When the Packers aren’t playing as well, they get more fans from opposing teams and Packer fans who aren’t locals or season-ticket holders.
She said she enjoys having Packer games on holidays and that the bar will be open for those games.
Officials over at Ticket King said they’ve been getting a lot of traffic on their website on Thursday night with people wanting to buy and sell tickets. When they open up tomorrow, they say they expect their phones to ring off the hook.
Allegiant will add flights to Las Vegas out of Appleton International Airport for the Packers matchup against the Raiders at the beginning of October.
