‘Section Yellow’ sober Packers fan group creates community for fans in recovery

The goal is to normalize sobriety, and since 2019, this group has grown to 2,000-plus fans and counting.

When you think of the city of Green Bay, you probably think of the Packers. This week, you almost definitely think of the NFL draft, which will kick off at Lambeau Field on Thursday, Apr. 24.

One thing that probably doesn’t come to mind is sobriety.

In addition to cheese curds and bratwurst, Wisconsin is known for its beer. Breweries like New Glarus, Central Waters Brewing, and even the behemoth brand Miller are all brewed in Wisconsin. And drinking is very much a part of the sports culture, whether you’re in Madison to see the Badgers play or hanging out in Lambeau. Heck, the Milwaukee Brewers are even named after the industry.

That environment can make it really hard for people who are in recovery — which is estimated to be about 22.3 million Americans — to enjoy sports in the way they did before they chose sobriety. And Section Yellow aims to change that.

‘I’m not alone.’

John Plageman, the founder of the group, got the idea when he was making plans to go to his first Phish concert after starting his recovery journey

“It’s like maybe five, six months of being sober, and they haven’t played Alpine in like five years. I’m like, ‘I am not missing this. There’s no way. There’s no way.’ But I was so scared and so frightened to go to this concert and relapse after all the work I did, right?”

He knew the Grateful Dead had a sober fan group called the Wharf Rats. So he did some research ahead of time and learned about a sober group of Phish fans called The Phellowship.

“That first set, I was just white knuckling it. And, you know, people are passing me joints, and everybody’s drinking, and I’m passing the joint to my buddy, and he’s smoking it. And then at set break, I’m like, I gotta find this table. I gotta find these people that are sober and are kind of like a safe zone,” Plageman said. “And I’m walking around. I’m getting pissed, I’m getting deflated. I’m getting like, do I need to leave? I don’t know if I can take another set like this, right, because it was very challenging, and I saw a yellow balloon around the corner.”

Yellow balloons signify sobriety in the music world. Plageman had found his people.

“I turned the corner, boom. There’s a table, there’s people, there’s like 40, 50 people who are sober, and they’re passing this balloon around, and they’re just talking, whoever has a balloon, they just say what’s on their mind. They express what their feelings are,” Plageman said. “And I’m getting re-energized, going all right, once again, I’m not alone. Number two, I have support. And number three, I have a place to go. And number four, these guys are fanatics, like fanatic Phish fans, like — they’re like me. They’re into this. And that was the start of it.”

Tom Farley is the Community Outreach Director for Recovery.com, and his brother, Chris Farley, was a Saturday Night Live legend and arguably the best physical comedian of my generation. Chris suffered from substance use disorder and it took his life in 2006. It’s motivated Tom, who is also in recovery, to help others, and he sees great potential in this type of sober community.

“I think whether you’re in recovery yourself, or thinking about being in recovery, or you have a family member, no matter where you are, there’s this just this feeling of isolation and being alone, and I gotta figure this out myself. And, yeah, you gotta do the work yourself, but you don’t have to figure it out yourself,” Farley said. “But we feel that way, and families feel that way. And this is just one of those things that shows communities that now you don’t have to be alone. There’s this amazing community of people out there willing to be there for you and build back connection into your lives, and not just your lives, but your families’. And I think the more we can be visible about that, I think the more people we can help.”

Breaking the stigma

Whether it’s recovery or mental health or both — because they’re inextricably linked — there’s long been a stigma around seeking help. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in many of us being more introspective about our relationships with alcohol and mindful about drinking, which has led to more people seeking help.

“We were alone. We were isolated. It really became apparent some of the difficulties of disconnection and isolation, and what we were doing to to to manage those horrible emotions, but the only thing we had was the internet. And internet searches for for help and resources have just went through the roof in the last decade, and especially since the pandemic,” Farley said. “And so that’s that was why Recovery.com was really created, is to really deliver all the efficiencies and and ease of finding help. I mean, the internet does that better than anything in technology, and so we’re harnessing all of that to make sure all the barriers are to entry are eliminated, or at least diminished.”

And there are barriers to entry for recovery in this country. It can be so overwhelming to even know where to start. And it’s difficult for loved ones who may not have experience with substance use disorder and recovery to understand why they can’t help or convince someone who’s struggling just stop drinking or using.

“Everything about that statement, that is so true, but it’s also, families don’t know either, and you’ve got to figure it out. You’ve got to want it. And just that alone keeps you kind of in a state of isolation, you’re still there. It’s your problem to solve, and you still you’re not feeling any less lonely now that you’ve decided to seek help. And that’s another way I think that Recovery.com can kind of bridge that gap between a family and someone searching for help — let’s build that connection and get them out of the dark much faster,” Farley said.

Normalizing sobriety in Green Bay’s drinking culture

Plageman is a massive music fan, and he may be an even bigger Packers fan. He’s a fourth-generation Packers fan, and his first Packers game was in 1993, when Reggie White played his first game against the Eagles. He sacked Randall Cunningham twice, but they lost. Today, Plageman is the caretaker of season tickets his Aunt Rosemary had since Lambeau Field was built. Not only did they share their love of the Packers, but she was a wonderful influence on his sobriety.

Rosemary was friends with Jackie Nitschke — the wife of Packers great Ray Nitschke — and they were both sober and advocating for recovery during a time when it wasn’t socially acceptable for women to be in recovery because of what being in recovery implied about a woman’s past.

“And those two women were pioneers in allowing women to get into Alcoholics Anonymous in the late 70s, because really it was an all-boys group,” Plageman said. “Women were kind of shunned because of the of the kind of the reputation you might get out into the community. You would never dare do that (to these women), because Jackie and my Aunt Rosemary were from predominant families, and (Rosemary) was sober for 36 years.”

Section Yellow was born from Plageman’s experience with The Phellowship, his Aunt Rosemary’s influence on his life and his sobriety, and his love for the Packers and a desire to normalize sobriety within that culture.

“What’s cool about this whole thing is she was such a die-hard Packers fan from the get-go. And she passed away in 2016 — now with where I’m going with Section Yellow, and we have a tent outside of Lambeau Field, and we’ve been working with the Packers since 2019,” Plageman said. “This is very circular for me, because one thing my aunt wished for me the most was that I would find sobriety when I was in my 20s.”

The early experience getting Section Yellow up and running wasn’t necessarily smooth.

Plageman, a social worker, presented the idea to some community leaders, who liked it but no action was really taken.

“Even though I got sober, I still have my character defects, and one of them is not taking no for an answer and being persistent,” Plageman said.

Interestingly enough, it was a local priest, Father Paul, who was able to reach out to the wife of Russell Ball, the Packers’ EVP/Director of Football Operations, to establish that connection.

Initially other fans were a little patronizing, like, “good luck finding the one sober Packers fan here!” But it turns out that there are a whole lot more than one sober Packers fan. Today, the Section Yellow Facebook group has over 2,000 members.

“At the beginning, I was going to put up all yellow balloons so fans would be able to find us, because we’re in the concourse, and it’s a huge concourse — to go from one area to the other is a long journey, and so we started putting up yellow balloons, and one of them popped, and on the concourse that echoes, and it sounded like like a gunshot or like a small bomb going off. I said, ‘We can’t have that. We just got here. We do not want to get kicked out. No more balloons here. No more balloons. Take all the balloons down,” he said.

So they started giving away the balloons (which are biodegradable and environmentally friendly), and now the fourth quarter at Lambeau — when the stadium is no longer serving alcohol — is Section Yellow’s quarter. When you see yellow balloons bouncing around the stands in the fourth quarter, you’re watching Section Yellow members celebrating their recovery and letting other people in the stadium and watching from home who are in recovery know they’re not alone.

Tom Farley loves the concept.

“Talk about humanity. [In Green Bay] you’re in the heart of it. You know you’re in a football stadium, and Lambeau, for one, it’s right there. It is such a celebration. And I know I thought I’d lost that, and people at Section Yellow thankfully said ‘We don’t have to lose this,’ and we’re gaining that back,” Farley said.

Section Yellow at the 2025 NFL Draft

Section Yellow is set up in Green Bay this weekend for the 2025 NFL Draft, and all are welcome to come by. The Section Yellow tent area will be between the Bellin and Kwik Trip gate alongside Lambeau in the draft zone. At 4 p.m. CT each day they’re hosting a gathering where people can just come and talk about football and learn about the organization. You don’t have to be living a sober lifestyle to hang out! They’ve got a table and a trash can set up outside, and all they ask is that you don’t bring alcohol into the tent.

There are many reasons someone might be sober. Maybe they don’t like alcohol. Maybe they have religious objections to drinking alcohol. Maybe there’s a medical issue that keeps them from drinking. Everyone who wants to enjoy the Packers with other fans who are clean and sober is welcome in Section Yellow. Sober allies, people who aren’t necessarily living a sober lifestyle but are happy to enjoy a game with fellow fans while abstaining from alcohol and substances, are welcome.

What Plageman and Section Yellow have already accomplished is incredible, but it’s not the ultimate goal. That goal is to turn Green Bay into a Yellow city, where sobriety is normalized and options exist for people in recovery or who choose to not drink alcohol for whatever reason.

“A lot of times when you say you’re sober, you get a lot of patronizing, like, ‘Oh, that’s so good that you’re sober, good for you. Oh, my God, it must be hard, proud of you. Way to go.’ And I’m like, ‘You know, I’ve been sober for 16 years. I’m cool with it. But are you cool with me being sober? Because at your tailgate, all you’ve got is liquor, and there’s not water, there isn’t any type of soda ... we want people to be sober-aware and be sober allies. So we’re cool with people drinking, but try to think of everybody at the game.

“We want to make Green Bay, Wisconsin the first Yellow city where everyone and every business and every tourist attraction is sober-aware and can normalize sobriety, because a lot of people will not travel to Green Bay because of the reputation we have for abusing alcohol,” Plageman said.

Recovery can be a long and lonely road. The support of a group like Section Yellow can make all the difference, one game at a time.

If you’re considering recovery or thinking about changing your relationship with alcohol, you are not alone and help is available. Recovery.com has tons of resources to educate yourself on the disease and the options for treatment as well as inpatient and outpatient programs, sober living, and other recovery programs.