- Thursday night marks another Green Bay preseason tradition: the Bishop’s Charities Game. It was first played in 1961 after Vince Lombardi was approached by the Diocese of Green Bay about playing a charitable contest in Green Bay (the Shrine contest was a fixture in Milwaukee).
- The series enjoys its 51st contest this year and has raised more than $3.5 million.
- For more than 30 years, the church handled much of the game’s business-related tasks, including game program and advertising sales, using a network of volunteers covering 14 Northeastern Wisconsin counties. The Packers assumed many of those tasks in 1994.
- The Packers are 26-23-1 all-time in the series. They will be playing Kansas City for the fourth time in the series, with the other meetings coming in 1978, 1979 and 1992.
- Green Bay has won two straight games in the series, including a 59-24 victory over Indianapolis in 2010. Prior to that, the Packers had lost six consecutive Bishop’s Charities contests. That six-game losing streak (2003-08) came on the heels of a 12-game winning streak (1991-2002) in the series.
Last year was the 50th game in the series.
The Compass put together a Facebook event for the game.