National Football League

Here's why the Packers still haven't sold out their playoff game vs. the Giants

Published Jan. 5, 2017 10:40 a.m. ET

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Dan Graf

Green Bay Packers fans are renowned for filling Lambeau Field to the brim, but they haven’t yet made good on that accolade as Sunday’s playoff game against the New York Giants approaches.

As of late Wednesday, 2,000 tickets remained for Green Bay’s 3:40 CT  kickoff, according to FOX 11 in Green Bay, putting in jeopardy the team’s streak of sellouts that dates back to 1959.

Three years ago, the team faced the same problem for a playoff game against the 49ers, and local business stepped in to buy the tickets so that the game wouldn’t be blacked out on local television. But since that time the NFL has suspended its blackout rule, which means that there likely won’t be a similar push to the finish line this weekend.

So what’s behind the strange lack of interest from what has always been one of the NFL’s most rabid fanbases? A few things:

1. Many season-ticket holders didn’t bother to pick up their option to buy playoff tickets when the Packers were mired in a midseason four-game losing streak that dropped them to 4-6.

2. Tickets on the secondary market are selling for at or below what the Packers are charging at face value.

3.  It’s going to be cold Sunday – around 15 degrees at kickoff – and no matter how hot Aaron Rodgers is, a big-screen TV in the living room starts looking like a pretty viable alternative at that temperature. The 49ers game three years ago had a game-time temperature of 5 degrees, so maybe Green Bay fans aren’t as hearty as they’d like you to believe.

The good news for the Packers is that the number of unsold tickets stood at 3,000 earlier in the week. Nothing would be more embarrassing than a playoff Lambeau Leap into an empty seat.

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