Packers Hope New Sporting Goods Store Has Big Draw

The opening of a new Cabela’s sporting goods store in the Green Bay area attracted hundreds of people this morning. The ribbon cutting is just one event that’s hoping to draw tourists to northeastern Wisconsin this week.

The 100,000 square foot hunting, fishing, and camping store drew controversy even before it was built. The Wisconsin legislature allowed the retailer to fill in a wetland to build the store just down Lombardi Avenue from the Green Bay Packers’ Lambeau Field.

The Packers have a financial interest in the store.

Today’s opening ties in with a big week for the team, the city of Green Bay and the village of Ashwaubenon, where the store and stadium reside. Asked to describe the store opening on a scale of one to ten, village President Michael Aubinger said, “Try an eleven.”

Aubinger can’t put a definitive dollar amount on the draw that the new Cabela’s store will have. But its ribbon cutting coincides with the beginning of the Packers’ training camp and a meeting of the team’s citizen shareholders. “Our tourism trade is double and triple any county around us. We employ maybe 11-12,000 people directly or indirectly in the tourism trade,” he said, “so [tourism has] a large impact on our community.”

Aubinger estimates that tourism brings the county nearly a billion dollars per year. “We are now in a fight to become number four, according to our county executive, [in order to] to surpass Waukesha [County].”

The Packers’ on-field football practices begin tomorrow, which means fans known as “railbirds” will catch the team’s open air practices for a glimpse of the new season’s lineup.