NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The National Football League isn’t known for its sentimentality, but Tuesday’s stock offering by the Green Bay Packers shows that there’s still romance in the sport.

The Packers, whose Wisconsin hometown is the smallest of any club in big-league professional sports, have offered an initial 250,000 shares to raise funds for redevelopment of its Lambeau Field. Each share is priced at $250.

The sale is limited to 200 shares per person, an amount that includes shares bought in the team’s last stock offering, launched in 1997.

Owning Packers shares isn’t like holding stock in, say, General Electric Co. — they don’t pay dividends and can’t be sold or transferred (other than handed on to immediate family members). For Packers fans, the sale isn’t about profit making but helping their team and declaring their allegiance.

“It’s really a mutual declaration of love,” said Bob Boland, a professor of sports management at New York University’s Tisch Center and a former agent and sports attorney. “It’s a way for fans to help the Packers and at the same time the team letting them get to say they’re an owner.”

The Packers, defending Super Bowl champions and flying high at 12-0 this season, are unique among major American sports in being nonprofit and publicly owned. Before Tuesday’s offering, the franchise had roughly 112,000 stockholders owning about 4.75 million shares. The corporation is governed by a board of directors and a seven-person executive committee. No individual is allowed to own more than 200,000 shares.

The latest offering, set to run through Feb. 29, is Green Bay’s fifth, following offerings in 1923, 1935, 1950 and 1997. Proceeds from this year’s sale will help pay for a $143 million project to add seats and amenities to Lambeau.

While fans can’t expect to make money from their shares, ownership does bring some benefits, including an invitation to the franchise’s annual meeting and the chance to buy shareholder-only merchandise.

Boland contrasted the stock offering with other sports teams’ attempts to raise additional funds by issuing personal seat licenses, or PSLs.

At many new sports stadiums, PSLs costing thousands of dollars are required before fans can buy season tickets. In theory, PSLs can be sold on at a profit if the holder doesn’t wish to renew a season ticket, though Boland said his research has found only two franchises, the Toronto Maple Leafs and Chicago Bears, where PSLs were selling at a premium to their initial sale price.

“What the Packers are doing isn’t just a seat transaction,” he said. “The equity the team gives is way of saying, ‘I’m investing in my home town or my heritage.’ ”