GREEN BAY, Wis. — Football and fish; yeah, in Green Bay the two are connected.

What You Need To Know

  • The Packers announced this week the stadium, and events like trining camp, will return at full capacity

  • The news comes as a relief to businesses and tourism officials

  • During a “normal year” each Packer home game generates an economic impact of about $15 million

The Packers announced this week that the team is planning for full capacity games and events this season, which means Green Bay Distillery will likely sell more of its Walleye and cod.

That’s great news to executive chef Joab Hernandez.

“It is a relief for everybody in the community,” he said Friday while preparing cod. “Green Bay depends on the Packers and all the businesses, too. So that’s good.”

The Packers played most of their games in an empty Lambeau Field during the first half of the season last year before opening stands to a limited number of people in the fall and winter.

That reality of the pandemic put a serious dent in the amount of visitor spending in the Green Bay area.

“There’s the old saying that you don’t know what you have until you don’t have it? Well, we learned last year what it’s like to not have people here at the training camp, people in the games at Lambeau Field,” Greater Green Bay Convention & Visitors Bureau president Brad Toll said. “It was a tough year. Probably the worst tourism year we’ve ever had as a community.”

While the losses of 2020 can’t be recouped, he’s optimistic the return of fans for training camp, pre-season and then regular season games will help the area and businesses move forward from the lull of the 15 months.

“We have all the hotels we had last year. We lost a few restaurants. Most of our attractions survived and are back,” he said. “We’re just really anxious to get visitors back here.”

So is Hernandez.

“It’s huge,” he said about the announcement. “We’re pretty much across the street from Lambeau Field so that will increase the revenue for sure.”