Now that the dust has begun to settle from yesterday’s Chicago Bears lakefront stadium announcement, let’s see what we can discern about the actual details of the plan. Beyond the handwavy-but-not-laughable vaportecture renderings, what do we actually know about, for example, how much all this would really cost, and who would pay for it and how?
Chicago Bears to seek public funding in $5bn plan for new lakefront stadium
Bears’ $3.2B lakefront stadium plans revealed
Chicago Bears Push Plans Forward for $4.6B Lakefront Stadium
Bears Ask Taxpayers for $2.4B Subsidy to Build $4.75B Domed Stadium Along Lakefront
That’s not a great start, when no two headlines can even agree on what the damn thing will cost. Let’s take a deeper dive and see what actual numbers Bears management provided. Yes, you in the front, Chicago Tribune?
The team proposed spending $2 billion for the stadium, plus $300 million from the NFL and $900 million to be borrowed by the state and paid back with the city’s existing 2% hotel tax…
But the mayor did not specify how the city would pay for $325 million in initial infrastructure costs to open the stadium, or $1.5 billion for an optional full build-out including a hotel.
So that’s $3.2 billion for the stadium proper, plus $325 million in infrastructure and $1.175 billion in “optional” add-ons, for a total of $4.7 billion, of which between $1.225 million and $2.4 billion would come from city funds. Any more details available about that optional full build-out, NBC Sports Chicago?
If the team gets the public funding needed to open the stadium, they said there will be two more phases of development requiring public money: one to maximize infrastructure for the stadium and surrounding campus totaling $510 million, and another phase for “optional infrastructure to enhance the campus, improve circulation, and maximize public economic benefits,” totaling $665 million.
That’s a little better, but still not exactly crystal clear. What does “maximize infrastructure” mean that isn’t the initial $325 million in infrastructure? And what kind of additional “optional” round of infrastructure would maximize public economic benefits so much as to be worth $665 million in taxpayer expense? (The Real Deal reports that that last phase would include “enhancements like new parking and multi-use playfields,” which given that the stadium would be built atop the old parking garage doesn’t seem very optional at all.)
University of Chicago economist Allen Sanderson, it’s so good to see you, what can you tell us?
“If you take one of these estimates of how many jobs will this create, how much economic impact will it produce for an economy, take whatever number the supporters are giving you, move the decimal point one to the left, and you’re pretty close. Which means 90% of it is nonsense.”
Generally a good rule, but still doesn’t shed much light on the actual costs. Maybe somebody has some charts?
Noooo, those aren’t any of the same numbers we saw before! And they don’t include any of the infrastructure! And that little “Financial forecasts subject to change” disclaimer at the bottom isn’t reassuring at all.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, meanwhile, vowed that there would be “no new taxes” for the Bears stadium project, based on the fact that the first $900 million would come from an existing 2% city hotel tax surcharge that currently goes to the state stadium authority. But that still leaves the other $325 million to $1.5 billion in infrastructure costs, plus spending the hotel tax money on this would mean it couldn’t be used for other stadium authority projects meaning taxes might then have to be raised for those, so surely nobody is taking Johnson’s claims at face value—
Then when I broke out the math for what they actually want in total — $2.3 billion+ — he mocked me for not listening to the Bears press conference in which they clearly said there will be no new taxes.
— Craig Calcaterra (@craigcalcaterra) April 25, 2024
All of this might make one wonder if Bears execs’ intent was to craft the most confusing set of numbers possible — and actually, there’s a decent chance that’s precisely their goal. As we’ve seen before, one of the most powerful weapons in the stadium subsidy demand toolkit is anchoring: trying to make your proposal look good not on its own merits, but in comparison to something else. So if a team owner can create a fog of cost projections — somewhere between $3.2 billion and $4.7 billion, with the team putting up something between 42% and 70% of the total — then it’s easier to argue that this maybe isn’t so bad, especially when the sports team owner across town is only talking about putting in 10-20%.
But all that is just manipulating the denominator: As J.C. Bradbury points out, it doesn’t matter how much taxpayers aren’t being asked to spend toward a Bears stadium, it only matters how much they would be on the hook for. Even at $1.225 billion, this would be one of the largest public subsidies for a private sports stadium in history; if that “optional” infrastructure turns out not to be so optional at all and the true taxpayer price tag is more like $2.4 billion, it would shatter all records. (And all this, mind you, doesn’t account for any additional hidden costs like property tax breaks*, which seem likely given that the stadium would be state-owned even though the Bears would be the ones controlling its use and all its revenues.)
There are still many, many hoops this plan has to jump through, including approval from the state legislature of $1.5 billion in state bonds toward the project (of which part would be repaid by the team and part by the hotel tax, I think, this is all really hard to follow). House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch immediately declared that “if we were to put this issue on the board for a vote right now, it would fail and it would fail miserably,” so that seems like a stumbling block. The parks preservation group Friends of the Parks, which has previously sued to block other development along the lakefront, also fired a warning shot about the Bears proposal, declaring that “as is so often the case in Chicago, the powerful and wealthy are demanding that our entire city stop and fast track their plans to expand operations on the people’s lakefront” and “we have too many questions to make any decision about the value of these plans.”
This is all very exhausting. At the very least, can we have some fresh lens flare for our troubles?
Ahhhh, that’s the stuff. Who can put a price — let alone half a dozen different prices — on that?
*UPDATE: University of Colorado Denver economist Geoffrey Propheter, who literally wrote the book on stadiums and property tax breaks, estimates that if the Bears sign a 40-year lease, the property tax break would amount to $1 billion over time. That would be enough to pay off about $400 million of the Bears’ stadium costs now, if my math is right, so we’re now talking between $1.625 billion and $2.8 billion, barring any additional hidden costs.
UPDATE #2: I got more details from Propheter: The future property tax breaks on the new Bears stadium are actually worth roughly $688 million over 40 years, which comes to about $250 million in present value. So we’re currently at between $1.475 billion and $2.65 billion in public subsidies.
Y’all.
Football is not this important.
Addendum: Bears football is REALLY not this important.
And lest we forget, like SoFi, AT&T, Allegiant, and US Bank Stadiums, a new domed stadium in Chicago will still be empty 300+ days per year.
It`s all in here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P8FJnysyt4&ab_channel=ChicagoBears
Starting at around the 1 hr mark, infrastructure part from around 1:04:00
That says:
Phase 1 ($325m): “Transportation, roadways, and utilities”
Phase 2 ($510m): “Parking, bus depot expansion, and new parks and playfields”
Phase 3 ($665m): “Further transportation improvements, retail, and public attractions”
No breakdown beyond that, and no information about how replacement parking garages, in particular, could be considered optional.
The teachers’ union is about to start negotiations on a new contract and is looking for a 9% annual raise. One might think they would be against the city spending billions of dollars on new sports stadiums, but they have been suspiciously quiet. Is it possible the mayor (a former CTU organizer) promised to give in to union demands if the CTU doesn’t come out against these stadium proposals?
https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2024/04/18/chicago-teachers-union-new-contract-ctu-strike-stacy-davis-gates-schools-cps-brandon-johnson
I don’t know if a deal like that has been struck as much as the CTU leadership doesn’t believe the stadium deal would impact their bottom line one way or the other. Since Johnson is a CTU guy to the core, they might just be assuming that even if the city of Chicago blew $2 billion of the public kitty on this stadium, the cuts would come from elsewhere. That’s a different calculus than in Nevada, for example, where the local teachers union has to tussle with a Republican Governor who’d happily use the excuse of “we have no money” to block pay increases or new hires.
Even a union as confrontational as the CTU tries to pick their battles. If they don’t see a need to fight an NFL team, they won’t. But if it turns out the property tax breaks for the Bears would drain the general education fund, I imagine they’d rally.
What’s the point of putting a domed stadium in this location?
I’m sure the residents in the condos on the other side of Lake Shore Drive are going to love having their lake views blocked by this thing.
Ugh this video: https://stadium.chicagobears.com/. “Revitalizing Chicago’s Lakefront” as if there isn’t already a ton of stuff to do right there that this will just interfere with.
That what I was thinking. If this was proposed with the Bears paying 100% there would be a strong argument to block it as the location is not appropriate.
They’re going to use that press conference video as an example of what not to do at a press conference for years and years.
If they have access to 2.3 billion, that seems like a pretty good start to build what they want on property they already own.
I do wonder how much of this was motivated less by Bears ownership having a coherent plan, and more by “Oh crap Jerry Reinsdorf is going to hog all the hotel-tax money, let’s try to get our dibs in now.”
“Mr. President! We cannot allow a hotel room tax subsidy gap!”
On this note, does raising an existing tax on hotel rooms qualify as a new tax? I bet in the minds of the Bears, the city and the stadium authority it does not….
It’s extending an existing tax surcharge — so, pretty much what the Royals and Chiefs were trying to do in KC.
And the mayor makes a point to say no new taxes for *residents* because apparently 100% of Chicago hotel rooms are occupied only by out of towners.
And adulterers!
KT: Sin taxes!
I think this is a potentially interesting facet to study in stadium fights. Ryan Smith did this very thing by banging the drum for an NHL team that “needs” a new arena, which allowed him to jump the line and get legislation approved for a sales tax increase and TIF in SLC. Going back to last year, that tax plan was originally devised to go towards Big League Utah’s ballpark. There was discussion of having a new hockey-ready arena for the 2034 Olympics, but state pols had signaled they weren’t going to look into financing any capital investments for the Games until 2027 at the earliest. But the NHL is here now, while MLB is still a hypothetical, so the political momentum went to the arena. Now the ballpark proposal is struggling to come up with a substantial revenue source that’d be politically palatable.
To your point, I wonder if teams are looking at the Nevada situation with the A’s. The deal for funding Allegiant poisoned the well so badly with voters and key constituencies that even when they railroaded the ballpark legislation a few years later, they faced enormous blowback. Even if the stadium survives the ballot measure, it’s still a helluva mess. I think there’s now a keen interest in teams trying to either get their hands in the cookie jar first before another local club empties it, or present their proposals as a sort of package deal.
Between the utterly transparent attempt at leverage they are trying to manufacture in Arlington Heights and the hail mary (which in the sitcom remake of the Bears will be the prayer they use to open the press conference) of trying to get something done on the lakefront with no state support and little support beyond an unpopular mayor, I think Kevin Warren is trying to appear busy enough to not get the blame when they head back to Arlington Heights with little change to their tax status.
Anyone else wondering if the woman who wears the “F… da Eagles” tee shirts is looking to rebrand in blue and orange?
I saw a note that said there’s still $600M in outstanding debt for the 2002 remodel. Is that correct? Love you guys!
IFSA have kicked the can down the road so far they still owe as much total as they financed initially: https://www.nbcchicago.com/investigations/bears-new-stadium-plan-raises-funding-questions-as-taxpayers-still-owe-589m-on-soldier-field/3379911/
That’s the beauty of compound interest!!!!
Right, so it’s an open question whether that debt should all be attributed to the stadium renovations, or whether some of it is the result of raiding the stadium fund to pay for other crap.
So I get needing infrastructure if they were going to Arlington Heights. But if they are building the new stadium right next to the old one, don’t they already have the infrastructure for 70K fans to get to and from games?
The Bears have had a few games in the past 20 years where Soldier Field wasn’t at or above 100% capacity so they need $600M in infrastructure to make sure those remaining 500 seats that are empty once every 5 years for a terrible team get filled.
It’s not so much about filling them, it’s about making them more lucrative. More luxury suites, etc.
As long as they can sell all the PSLs and the leases for the boxes, etc, getting actual humans to come to the games is not really a high priority.
Didn’t the Bears just get done defacing a national landmark? Shouldn’t there be a rule or something that says you can’t get a new stadium until you put the old historic one back the way it was?
For your Friday article, you can talk about the city of Indianapolis suddenly walking away from Eleven Park and the developer Keystone feeling like a jilted ex, despite the fact that Keystone for months insisted the city pay upwards of 80% of the $1.5 billion expenses on the project.
Perusing the comments on The Athletic article yesterday was so depressing (and exhausting-the count is probably past 400 by now).
So many fans only heard the words “free stadium.” Oh, and no new taxes. Their heads were full of dreams about all the new big events that would come to town and all the cash the City would rake in because “they own the stadium!”
They mentioned the economic miracle of Glendale hosting the Super Bowl LOL
I tried to point out the fact that this deal will probably have that pesky clause stating: the Bears keep all revenue from all non-football events, you pay all the costs. The Kool-Aid was too strong to overpower.
I did mention they should read the Field of Schemes website several times. Those comments did not get any upvotes. Sigh.
The funniest views were against Friends of the Park: “They can’t sue! The Stadium Authority has control of public spaces. They can do whatever they want because this is a public park, and it’s free! And we own it! Did I say free!”
Guess they never heard of lawyers…..
The Athletic comments are generally pretty depressing. A definite MAGA bent too, I’ve found.
If da Bears are so desperate to get out of the stadium they so desperately wanted 20 years ago, I have some suggestions for really good cities to try that are still in Illinois. Jake and Elwood Blues were from Calumet City, they could film Blues Brothers 3 there, and hold a police car demolition derby at Soldier Field on the way out. Joliet Jake spent alot of time in Joliet, the old prison could be filled with a domed stadium, that would be awesome, comparing jail food with the Bears concession stands. Maybe they can serve a wicked Terre Haute pepper steak. St. Louis is still upset about losing the Rams to a $5.5 billion dome in Inglewood. Virginia, know that East Saint Louis is, do you know that only one mile from the dome Kroenke abandoned after 20 years in St Louis? A multi-billion dollar domed stadium would have a huge economic impact on East Saint Louis. There is a real Metropolus in Illinois, and I’m not talking about Chicago. Metropolis, Illinois could host a third NFL stadium on the Ohio River. That would set up a rivalry with the Bengals and Steelers when da Bears move to the AFC North. Gary Bettman gave me that idea for mixing up novel rivalries. One final stadium location idea still in Illinois, move to Decatur and change your name to the Staleys.
No more hard too see words while typing in comments!
YEA! Thanks Neil!
I finally found a different dark mode plugin that works better! (DarkMySite, if anyone cares.) It’s still not perfect — in particular I wish I could control the color of links in dark mode — but it’s much improved over the previous one.
If I could just get MLBTradeRumors to do it I would be set! Tim Dierkes the owner keeps ignoring me sigh…..
Tim reads this site! (Or has in the past.) Let me bug him.
Wow! Thanks Neil!
I’m a sucker for new stadiums, but hard to justify the cost for a facility that will sit empty most of the year.