One of the things I try to do here at Field of Schemes is to get to the bottom of the full costs of public subsidies for sports projects. This is a lot harder than one might think — we’ve previously discussed urban planning professor Judith Grant Long’s decade-long quest just to come up with an instantly out-of-date list of how much had been spent on existing stadiums and arenas — and is only made trickier when you’re projecting costs in the future.
For the proposed Chicago Bears stadium, I’ve so far come up with an initial public cost estimate of $2.65 billion, counting new garages and replacement parkland as well as property tax breaks. That’s a staggering amount — it would be be easily the largest stadium subsidy in the history of humankind. (Not counting Vladimir Putin’s caviar highway.) But it would still pale in comparison to the latest estimates by the head of the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, which would be responsible for both borrowing the money and paying much of it off:
Counting interest and other long-term costs, the proposed new borrowing would tally up to at least $4.8 billion over four decades, said Frank Bilecki, ISFA’s CEO.
In addition, the Bears are seeking up to $1.5 billion in infrastructure money, not counting the debt the public will incur, that the team says would be needed to fully realize its vision for a year-round venue and surrounding park space that Mayor Brandon Johnson said Wednesday would be “the crown jewel of the city of Chicago.”
So the real public cost would be … $6.3 billion? You’re starting to talk about real money!
There are a bunch of caveats here, however. The first is hinted at by that “over four decades” clause: While it’s fair to say that it would cost $4.8 billion to pay off stadium construction costs over time, this is not the same as it actually costing $4.8 billion in the way that a slice of New York pizza now costs $4 or an F-35 fighter jet costs $179 million. Rather, that’s how much a Bears stadium would cost if you add up all the debt payments over 40 years — but because some of those payments wouldn’t have to be made for decades, the city of Chicago could make them by setting aside much smaller sums today. (This is exactly why you shouldn’t calculate the price of a house by adding up all your future mortgage payments, or the cost of Shohei Ohtani’s contract by adding up the figures on the paychecks he’ll receive in 2043.)
Also, while all of those $4.8 billion in Bears stadium payments would be made by the ISFA, it wouldn’t be responsible for raising all the money. About 71% of the borrowing specifically for stadium construction would be paid off by the Bears owner and the NFL, leaving $900 million in present-day cost to be underwritten by taxpayers. Add back in those infrastructure costs (which include things like demolishing the old stadium, which isn’t really infrastructure spending in any way humans normally understand it) and foregone property taxes, and we’re back at that $2.65 billion figure.
Did Bilecki reveal any other hidden costs we need to worry about? As part of the Bears project, the ISFA would have to refinance its $430 million in remaining debt on the existing Bears and White Sox stadiums; but that’s not a new cost, just something that Chicago would have to find a way to pay off in order to shift existing hotel tax money into paying off the new Bears stadium. (It is, however, a good reason why Mayor Brandon Johnson’s “no new taxes” pledge is utter BS.) There would also be a $160 million “liquidity fund” to cover any shortfalls in hotel tax money, but again, that’s not additional spending, it’s just more contingency plans to come up with that $2.65 billion a different way if the hotel tax fund runs dry.
So to sum up: The reporting that a Bears stadium would involve $6.3 billion in spending over time isn’t wrong, but it is a misleading way to think about it. And we’re still talking about an extremely real $2.65 billion worth of present-day public money, which there is no possible way Chicago taxpayers would ever get back. (Bears officials claim the city, county, and state would earn an additional $64 million a year in taxes from a new stadium, which is 1) extremely unrealistic given it would largely be the same local Bears fans spending the same entertainment dollars a few hundred feet further south and 2) still only enough to pay off maybe a third of the public cost.) It’s bonkers no matter how you slice it, and this site, at least, will continue to go with the more realistic bonkers number.
Why should Chicago give da Bears a single Argentnian Peso? Even 6 billion Argentinan pesos is more than Chicago should pay for the flying saucer YOU wanted just 20 years ago. What will da Bears do? Move to St Louis? Good, move to Crest Hill, Plainfield or Crystal Lake, and take that flying saucer with you. Da Bears will instantly lose $1,000,000,000 in value if they leave the City of Chicago, and double, triple or quadruple that the further you move from Chicago. Virginia, stand on your head and move to Perth, Australia, you’ll actually be on your feet when you get to Perth.
Pretty blatant example of Sportsball Math when it comes to NFL franchise value.
If anything, Chicago’s NFL club would be worth more by relocating to the Arlington Park site in the northwest suburbs.
How would they be worth more in Arlington Heights Chucky?
There are certainly some limitations to the current site, but are those severe enough to make a community of less than 80,000 some 25 miles from downtown “better”?
Arlington Heights may be closer to many of the season ticket holders, but then Arlington Heights doesn’t have that spectacular view of the Museum Campus, Grant Park and the Chicago skyline. Even though attendance slips for December games, the season tickets are already sold, so all da Bears lose is beer sales. How many beers do da Bears have to sell to recoup $5 billion? At $10 a beer, that’s 500 million beers, enough to get every man, woman and child in Illinois drunk many times over. Virginia, you, Ed and your sons wanted that flying saucer, if you like Arlington Park so much, pay for the stadium and school taxes yourself.
[Note: not a productive comment]
I wonder if the Roman Coliseum counts as a sporting venue — gladiators, chariot races — and how much it cost the public treasury, adjusted for inflation. Probably sort of a bargain, I’d guess, although it’s just sat there, empty, for like, a thousand years. . .
Nova
I can’t begin to have an educated guess at the cost…but I do know significant amounts of free labor tends to keep costs down :)
Ah, good point!
It’s all well and good to be shocked by numbers like ‘$4.8Bn over four decades’, but the real scandal is the notion that the Bears won’t be back at the public trough for more blood sucking before the ‘four decades’ is up.
The “four decades” part is meaningless. The people deciding on the funding for this boondoggle could (and should) simply say ‘if we are gifting this to the Bears right now, we need to pay for it right now’, and implement a special levy on everyone and everything in the prescribed area to raise enough funds to pay for it THIS YEAR.
In fact, I’ve even thought of a name for this special levy: “The Virginia Halas McCaskey Enrichment Fund”.
Wouldn’t you cough up a few hundred bucks (make it an even $300 per person in Chicagoland… that way you have a contingency for the contingency and the Bears can start thinking about how to put in less money than they promised up front… ok $325 then, fine. But if you’d all put in $350 then…) in 2024 to make Mrs. McCaskey significantly richer?
And think of the marketing opportunities for Drexel U! (ok, not in Illinois but still… they taught her business skills and clearly these have worked on Illinois politicians…)
Cities the size of Chicago need to realize they don’t have to do anything. Sure the Bears could move to Greensboro, but like the Rams, they, or some other team will eventually come back, and build their own stadium.
Exactly. The sad thing is, I’m pretty sure the city of Chicago (and most if not all of the others) DO realize this.
And they fund these scandalous acts of welfare for billionaires anyway.
Thinking about Chicago and their commitment to the owners …
FWIW the owner of the dolphins has grand plans to build, build, build! In south Florida. The attached article gives a look at what he wants to do. But it doesn’t talk about how he plans to pay for it.
One might assume he’ll be looking for public funds of course. Which is par for the course for these billionaire types.
They note the development of Hudson yards as an example (also built by the related group) … and it used some financial sleight of hand to make it work financially.
https://fortune.com/2024/04/26/billionaire-miami-dolphins-owner-florida-manhattan/
The politicians against this socialism for the Billionaires would get every vote for reelection available to them if they clearly, in plain spoken English laid it out to the taxpayers: “I know Chicagoans love The Bears…but don’t want to give YOUR hard earned dollars to a Billion dollar sports organization that can afford to pay for a new stadium itself? Do you realize that allocating money for the Bears means that there is NO money available for things like new schools, crime reduction programs, etc.? Do you know that the NFL is a multi-BILLION dollar cartel that can afford new stadiums and much much more, but they think you fans are dumb and will pay for a new stadium from Your tax dollars because you “want to support your team?! I’m against giving YOUR money to a Billion dollar organization that already has its hands in your wallets and purses for insanely priced costs on beer and food in the stadium, souvenirs , etc. Simply put, a Billionaire wants more of Your money…and I’m NOT OK with that!”
A lot of people care more about the Bears than public schools or anything else.
Here in Texas, the city of Allen quite cheerfully paid close to $60m for a new high school football stadium instead of investing the money in, you know, education.
They then had to close it after less than 18 months when entire sections of the bleachers and structure began cracking, which then led to a lengthy pissing contest between the designers and the builders over who screwed up. Remediation cost over $10m.
Here in Texas, football comes a close second to religion.
Allen High School is enormous and they get huge crowds for football. Given that, $60m might not have been such a bad deal. The facility is not just a football stadium.
They may be able to make enough revenue to cover that.
The better question is whether it makes sense for one high school to be the size of a small university.
But breaking it up into more schools would mean breaking up their football juggernaut, and the community identity that goes with it.
Football isn’t really about football.
The opposite problem is more common. Rural districts with declining enrollment don’t want to combine because it symbolizes a loss of specific community identity.