Imagine you're the commissioner...

...of a sports league that could have had teams from your two largest markets (New York and Chicago) in the championship game. (You don't even have a franchise in Los Angeles.) Instead, you wind up with teams from Pittsburgh and Green Bay, with the latter -- population about 100,000 -- taking the crown.

And you know what? You couldn't care less.
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In the Times today, Dave Anderson has a great piece on the Packers, "What's Always Been So Great About Green Bay":

I knew Lombardi when he was the Giants’ offensive coach in the 1950s, but I never really heard his voice that could melt snow until the Packers’ 1962 championship game against the Giants at Yankee Stadium. With my newspaper, The New York Journal-American, on strike, Jim Kensil of the N.F.L. office asked me to be his sideline spotter on the Packers’ bench. Confirm which player had recovered a fumble, be aware of injuries.

Early in the game, Jim Taylor, the Packers’ fullback, wobbled to the bench. In a pileup, somehow his upper teeth had been driven into his tongue and now, sitting next to where I was standing, he was spitting blood as if he had opened an artery.

Soon, with the Giants about to punt, Lombardi’s booming voice penetrated the brutal cold with a wind that was blowing Giant quarterback Y. A. Tittle’s passes this way and that.

“Taylor!” Lombardi roared. “Taylor!”

With another spit of blood, Taylor stood up, put on his green and gold helmet, turned and trotted onto the field with the offense. He went on to gain 85 yards on a record 31 carries for a championship game. The Packers won, 16-7.
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Wherever you go in Green Bay, it’s all about the Packers. It’s a city of some 102,000 now, but compared with all the big-city franchises, Green Bay resembles a small town with a team — the only publicly owned franchise in the four major sports with by far the smallest market. And with the most devoted fans.

Some 80,000 names are on the waiting list for season tickets; the most recently rewarded fans went on the list in the 1950s. Much of their clothing is green and gold.