GREEN BAY, Wis. -- There is nobody more powerful in the Green Bay Packers' organization than the team president. Yet when Bob Harlan held that post for 19 years and oversaw the franchise's return to glory in the 1990s, he never masqueraded as Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft or any other wealthy NFL owner.

And he made sure no one who worked at 1265 Lombardi Ave. did either.

"I always told the people on our staff: 'Every time somebody calls this organization, remember they own the team, we don't,'" Harlan recalled recently.

And there are 538,967 of them who might pick up the phone at any time and dial 920-569-7500.

Whether it's Harlan from 1989 to 2008, Mark Murphy since January 28, 2008, or the recently named Ed Policy, who will take over in July 2025 after Murphy reaches the team president's mandatory retirement age of 70, none of them will ever own the Packers -- even though the president essentially acts as the owner when it comes to voting on NFL policies.

In the simplest of terms, this is how the team in the smallest city in American professional sports operates as the only one without a controlling owner.

The Packers' articles of incorporation prohibit any single person from owning more than 200,000 shares -- protection against someone attempting to control the team.

According to the Packers, there are some 5,204,625 shares of the team owned by the half-million-plus stockholders. The stock pays no dividends and cannot be traded, therefore it has no market value, though it can be transferred to a family member.

"There really is no model for this other than this," said Rick Chernick, a Green Bay business owner who served on the Packers' board of directors from 1998 to 2022. "It's not like the board dictates anything day-to-day; they really don't. The employees who report to Mark and to the executive team, they're the ones who do the lion's share of the work. We're just like a sounding board and will listen to what's going on and make suggestions and give ideas.

"But it is absolutely fascinating when you travel and you say you're on the Packers' board, people say, 'Who has a board?' Baseball, basketball, hockey? None of them."