The Life of a Sports #Influencer: A Week in Titletown, USA

I've been to Green Bay for Packers games before, but I've never been on a press trip. For you non-media readers who don't know, press trips are basically all-expenses-paid workcations for #influential (lol, not really) writers. They're usually sponsored by some company who wants you to write nice things about whatever product, cause, or—in this case—city, they represent. For a whole week I was housed by the Greater Green Bay Convention and Visitor's Bureau, who hired a PR firm named Geiger & Associates to show us around. Can't thank them enough for giving me the experience. Given that I've never spent more than a weekend anywhere in Middle America (tri-state area or die, yo), this was a culture-shock of a trip.

Conveniently, I'm also huge Packers fan, so having the city of Green Bay pay for a week-long trip out there was a minor dream come true. Before you dig into my press trip diary, know this: There's a lot more going on in Green Bay than just the Packers. While the entire local economy is dependent upon the Packers to flourish (and some locals are figuring out cool ways to make money off what the Packers bring to the table), there are plenty of sites and attractions around town to peep. They have a dope zoo, killer restaurants, a beautiful botanical garden, and everyone is so friendly and hospitable that it hurts to be back in New York. If you enjoy doing new things, drinking lots of quality craft beer, and eating your weight in cheese, then I implore you to take a trip up to Green Bay. But before that, get some travel tips from The Life of a Sports #Influencer: A Week in Titletown, USA.

After journeying from Newark Airport’s piss-drenched terminals, my nasal passages are elated by the scent of non-piss. Green Bay is just as I left it: no building is taller than Manute Bol and every face is as white as Steve Blake. The flatlands of the Midwest are striking compared to the views of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Freedom Tower from FDR Drive in Manhattan. The deadness is Zenlike—instead of fire truck alarms on every corner, there’s usually just a dude every few miles mowing his lawn or something, which brings me to the above picture.

Instead of being greeted by a car from a local dealership or some grand sculpture to represent the city to travelers, at Green Bay’s Austin Straubel International Airport, there are $8,000 lawnmowers front-and-center. I’m officially in middle America.

The plug drops us off at the new crib. It’s the first hotel—not motel—I’ve ever seen that’s only one story. Clearly, Green Bay building codes are based on the engineering knowledge of like the 19th century. The hotel itself is fucking bomb though.

Instead of “Happy Hour,” they have “Hungry Hour” at the hotel restaurant/bar, where $5 Hungry Hour scallop dishes exist. The sea scallop is tastiest source of protein on Mother Earth, and it's $30 a plate back in Manhattan. These $5 scallops from Wisconsin seem sus.

So, there’s a water park inside of the Comfort Suites. I’ll have to ride the waterslides late night, because an adult going on a 4-foot waterslide during daylight is/should be illegal.

I’ve been wearing the same baseball tee and sweatpants combo for two straight days. A soothing, hot shower is needed. I load up my iPhone with a Spooky Black playlist and prepare for the steam. A basic shower plan that didn’t fit with the baller ass shower I’ve been blessed with.

First off, this shit is bigger than my entire bathroom back in the East Village. I’m stunned. It's so big that I can't angle my camera to take a proper picture of the whole thing.

I find a remote built into the shower. Is this to operate the shower? Are showers now controlled by sensors and NFC technology? Is controlling hot and cold as easy as turning the volume up and down? Will pressing the power button unleash the stream?

No, it turns out, because a remote in a shower is a stupid idea. The remote wasn’t for the shower.

THE REMOTE IS FOR THE TELEVISION INSIDE THE SHOWER. HOLY SHIT. In elementary school, my nighttime bath would usually coincide with Cartoon Network’s daily Transformers episode, and half the time I would miss it. I’d lay there in my bathtub, wishing for a television screen to emerge above my faucet. This hotel basically turned a 10-year-old dream into a reality. Thank you, Comfort Suites Green Bay.

Son, there are SEVEN SHOWER HEADS. (I later learn that my room is called the “Shower Suite.”) One in the basic angled shower head position, three above me, and three right at ballsack-level. Once the steam gets going, I spray some air freshener, start my Spooky Black, and pretend that this is how Drake showers every morning. I can never go back to my bathroom a home ever again. Nothing Was The Same.

I take a dump while watching iCarly, relishing my existence in my Comfort Suites-created no-haters bubble.

Our press crew assembles in the lobby for dinner at the hotel’s restaurant. I’m the only minority face in there. (A black sports and travel writer from Philadelphia would join us later.) Every other writer on this trip looks like a suburban Little League coach. I also discover, upon arriving at the restaurant, that this isn’t a sports press trip. Every writer here covers travel, not sports. At dinner, I try my best to keep up with conversations about the real estate value of different cities, local IPAs, and favorite Robin Williams moments. I try the $5 scallops and they’re fire and I can’t believe how good $5 scallops are because good $5 scallops shouldn’t exist BUT THEY DO.

It’s time to retire back to my Shower Suite a tad early, because I feel a strong desire to enjoy a hotel room that’s legitimately larger than my own apartment. I end up Googling the names of my fellow press trip writers while listening to Young Thug. One of them tweets this cookie, and I start searching for mine. It was on the bar counter next to the bathroom. Oof. Chocolate always makes for a nice nightcap.

We have like ten different events planned for the day, so it's an early start. It's not an encouraging one though—I open my blinds and see a semi, a dumpster full of mattresses, and lots of rain. Ugh.

I hop on Tinder to kill some time in the car. Brick.

Look at how G these kids are. It's the summer, and they're up before working hours in the wind and rain to get to Lambeau Field. Why? Because every day during Packers training camp, players come out of the stadium and hop on a kid's bike for a joyride to the practice field across the street. Players don't practice for another THREE HOURS, but these rascals are on-point with their player thirst. They'd do well as New York sneakerheads or Shake Shack customers.

The Lambeau Field atrium is dope. Built in 2003 after the Packers were tired of being a poor franchise (in relative NFL terms), they put up this attachment to Lambeau in order to make the stadium a revenue-generating mixed-use facility. It's now open 363 days a year and has offices, a restaurant, guided tours, party facilities, and a huge team shop. With the way the NFL CBA works, all that in-stadium revenue gets safely tucked away from the paws of the league's revenue sharing agreement. A year after it opened, the Packers went from 27th in overall revenue to 7th. Some true boss shit.

Aside from a few hospitals, Lambeau Field is the tallest structure in Green Bay. It's also the only NFL stadium with bleacher-only seating, which I absolutely do not fuck with. Hardly ergonomic.

We go down to the field and I steal a blade of grass while our tour guide helps people take pictures. Nobody catches me and I feel like a thug even though I literally stole one blade of grass and it's not that cool. I brag about it to my press tour comrades, who are all actually very impressed by my daring accomplishment.

The worst part of the Packers Pro Shop. One great part about being a fan of an NFL team is that we all hate the NFL.

Retired Packers wide receiver Donald Driver is now a children's book author. “Quickie,” however, means something a little different where I'm from (the gutter).

We take a segway tour around Lambeau Field's parking lot, and my segway's name is Ebony. Moving on….

For whatever reason, Ellen DeGeneres is painted on a fence directly in front of Lambeau. I'm unable to get an explanation as to why from anyone.

We stopped by Packers training camp for a half hour, which is a bummer because I wanted to stay for the whole thing. Alas, this is a travel writer's press trip, so we need to travel and move on to other things. My heart melts with every Aaron Rodgers movement, and I tell myself what a down-to-earth, hardworking bro he is for moving his own practice equipment. He and Olivia Munn deserve to be together forever.

Lunchtime is held across the street from Lambeau at a place called “Under the Lights of Lambeau.” This awesome single mother converted half of her home into a Packers-themed BnB. She hauls in $2,500 for parties of 8-10 people during home game weekends and still maintains solid occupancy rates even during the offseason. She's more than welcoming, and the brats and green buns she made for us really hit the spot after a long morning.

I take back what I aside about Green Bay's building codes or whatever. This is so corny that it's cool.

Sweet stickers, bro.

After a quick recharge back at the hotel, we're whisked off to Brett Favre's Steakhouse. I dined there in 2008, and the food was average. Once again, the $48 steaks weren't seasoned all that well and my medium rare was totally medium well, but whatever. Favre himself hasn't visited the place since he left town, and as far as I can tell, the restaurant is really just a trophy room that serves meh food to rich people who want to flex.

I order a rib-eye and a “Brett Favre's Voodoo”—his signature beer. I'm told by our waiter that it's “Brett in a glass,” which is completely inaccurate in a metaphorical sense. Favre was a gunslinging, super tough maniac on the field, and this beer is manilla envelope types of bland. The beer connoisseur on the press trip confirms this. I wolf down the 20oz steak and later pass out by the fireplace in my hotel's lobby.

I wake up aggy AF because I'm not used to doing anything before noon, but I solider on. Our first stop is the Green Bay Botanical Garden, which is a lowkey great place to check out so long as you're not on acid. This thing would easily make your brain explode. Besides that, the flowers are impressive (men can love flowers too, ya know), except I'm allergic to basically everything in sight and there's no Zyrtec around for miles. My morning struggle continues.

We then hit up the National Railroad Museum, which is conventienly located in Green Bay of all places. It's actually way more engaging and interesting than I could've expected, mainly because THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE TOYS ARE THERE. I grew up playing with these wooden train sets, which is nuts to think about because today's kids basically fumble around on iPads all day and don't value anything that isn't on a screen. I'm told that Thomas comes to the museum every June—like an actual, real-life, working train in the shape of Thomas the Tank Engine, so I'll definitely be back to this place. Fuck the Polar Express, Thomas is the GOAT children's train thing.

Either Green Bay is super Epipen friendly or its residents love to shoot up in public restrooms. The railroad museum's bathroom wasn't the only place I saw disposable needle boxes—they seemed to come standard in every Green Bay bathroom.

I knock back a few brews at lunch, which was a mistake because we spend our afternoon in a brewery and a bar. By this point in the trip, I decide to get as hammered as possible. Our visit to start-up nanobrewery Badger State Brewing Co. was as difficult for me to stomach as it was pleasant. They make damned good beer in Wisconsin.

Our next stop is at a craft cocktail bar called The Libertine. The owner gives us a quick mixology course, but his life story is far more interesting: he got kicked out of two different colleges, started working as a dishwasher, and then decided to put his parent's mortgage on the line to buy the failing bar where he worked. Two years later he's the King of Specialty Cocktails in Green Bay. An email from my school's bursar office arrives while we drink, and I get sad.

Before we leave, he treats us to a shot of this shit, which is the most accurate and literal use of the word “shit” in this entire article, because it actually tasted like doo-doo. “It's what we buy for bartenders when they come visit us,” he tells me. Well that's some fucking hospitality, man. The taste is so terrible and bitter and lasting that it makes me want more. I'll have to track down a bottle of this Chicago-based death liquor so I can impress and scar my 151-chugging asshole friends (I vomited my first ever shot of 151, which they never let me live down). I'm not sure what happens the rest of the day, and looking back, I didn't take any notes or pictures. Malort 1 Justin 0.

Another early start. I'm hungover and barely eat anything at breakfast. We visit De Pere, which is a town right next to Green Bay. The community's recently redeveloped their downtown district, putting in cupcake stores, chocolate shops, spas, a farmer's market, and hosting free 1,500-person yoga classes in the park. It's the whitest place I've ever been to.

Overall, De Pere is cute and the waterfront is calming. You feel right next to nature on their riverwalk—it's so easy to enjoy the river's views of its wildlife and WAIT LOOK, IT'S A GIANT 19TH CENTURY MILE-LONG PAPER FACTORY. The tension between nature and industry is overwhelming—how can the progress of an industrial society co-exist with our environment? That deep question inspires a #thinkpiece, which I quickly scrap because it begins to sound like a bullshit AP Language and Composition paper.

I tap in to my green side at Green Bay's wildlife sanctuary. They rehab wild animals there and release them back into the wild, and I'm impressed by the knowledge and care of the staff there. The place has 550 acres of trees and all types of critters. I'm surrounded by more birds than an Alfred Hitchcock movie. That also means that there's bird poo everywhere for my Flyknit trainers to step in :(

Another reason to visit Green Bay if you're not a Packers fan: The NEW Zoo and Adventure Park is killer. I go ziplining for the first time, and while it's not as thrilling as a rollercoaster, it's not as sucky and boring as South Park made it out to be. Feeding this giraffe was a very grounding and exotic experience, though.

Dinner at Titletown Brewing Co. I try every beer and barely eat anything (these delicious fried cheese curds were all eaten though) because I'm so full on beer. While there, I also discover that my hotel keycard case has two coupons for free drinks at the hotel bar. The last thing I remember is bitching about the current state of media (how “concerned professional” of you, Justin) to a fellow press tour writer who runs a Beer lover's print magazine. The next morning, I check my online bank statement to find that debit card has a $48 charge from the hotel bar on it. I love Green Bay.