Da Bears...
Will no longer be in Chicago...
The Chicago Bears will proceed with plans for a new stadium in Hammond, Indiana, the organization announced Friday.
In announcing the potential out-of-state move, the NFL franchise carefully worded its language to allow for a different outcome. And at least two Illinois lawmakers say team President and CEO Kevin Warren gave them advanced notice of the announcement and Warren suggested talks about staying in Illinois would continue.
“Yesterday, the Chicago Bears Board of Directors met and voted to advance our stadium development project in Hammond, Indiana, with the exact site to be selected,” the team said in a joint statement from Warren and Chairman George H. McCaskey. “We believe a world-class stadium project in Hammond will transform the region, connecting Northwest Indiana to the South Side of Chicago through the Loop and across neighborhoods and suburbs stretching north of the city. It will bring Chicagoland together and deliver new opportunities to its residents and businesses.”
The team’s decision comes less than a week after the Illinois legislature adjourned without taking up a last-ditch Senate bill that would have allowed Arlington Heights or Chicago to enter into a public-private ownership deal with the NFL franchise. Such legislation would have given the team a path to build a new stadium without paying property taxes on the facility, bill sponsors said.
Full article, HERE from the Chicago Tribune.
This one has been going on since 2021, with the Bears making various decisions only to have either the City of Chicago or the state, or both, refusing to support the decisions. Indiana, on the other hand, has been more that accommodating, quickly passing bills in the state legislature to support the discussions, and now, five years later, it looks like the Bears are moving on.
Actually, I’m not surprised, as it has been pretty apparent that both Prtizker and now Johnson don’t want to give the Bears anything, and want to control the decision process.
What neither of them understand is that the Bears have the ultimate option of moving without their approval. This is a lesson they ‘should’ have learned from Baltimore, Oakland, San Diego, and San Franciso... Oh wait, those are all Dem run cities... never mind...
If the outcome is that Chicago and Illinois stop subsidizing the team e.g. by building them a new stadium using taxpayer dollars, sweetheart tax bills, etc. ...? I have to say, as a former IL resident, I'd support that.
I saw this in my birth city. A minor league baseball team is courted, offered sweet heart deals, gets a stadium built on the taxpayers dime, and no one wants to go watch a game because the stadium was built in a crime-infested area and parking was too far and too expensive. And within five years, the team moved on to another city out of state, while that stadium sits unused. And the tax and business revenue never appeared. 💸
I visited Fort Pitt museum yesterday, had a great time visiting with a friend while touring the museum, and the parking lost cost $30 for the gunboat I was driving. 😳