Chicago Bears execs have been asking Illinois for a pile of dough for a new stadium for years now, and have been consistently told by state leaders to go pound sand. And as a famous Chicagoan once almost said, “When the going gets tough, the tough seek leverage.” So it came to pass yesterday that Bears CEO Kevin Warren yesterday delivered what was clearly intended as a shot across Illinois’s bow, saying that he was now ready to consider moving across state lines:
We have been told directly by State leadership, our project will not be a priority in 2026, despite the benefits it will bring to Illinois.
Consequently, in addition to Arlington Park, we need to expand our search and critically evaluate opportunities throughout the wider Chicagoland region, including Northwest Indiana.
“This is not about leverage,” added Warren, but when you issue a public letter announcing that the only reason you’re considering leaving your state is because the state won’t lavish spending and tax breaks on you — sorry, provide “a commitment to essential local infrastructure” and “reasonable property tax certainty” that it only so happens would cost taxpayers more than $1 billion — it’s hard to read it any other way. (Warren also called Soldier Field “the oldest and smallest stadium in the NFL,” the first part of which is only true if you consider this to be the same stadium as this.)
Gov. JB Pritzker’s office certainly took it as saber-rattling, calling the statement “a startling slap in the face to all the beloved and loyal fans who have been rallying around the team during this strong season.” Indiana officials, meanwhile, appeared happy to play along with whatever Warren has in mind, with Gov. Mike Braun saying, “This move would deliver a major economic boost, create jobs, and bring another premier NFL franchise to the Hoosier State. Let’s get it done.”
Braun did not say whether he was ready to offer a billion dollars to get it done; Indiana’s legislature voted to create a sports development commission in April, but, notably, didn’t give it any actual money. Regardless, the magic of leverage — sorry, of “critically evaluating opportunities” — is that it’s not about how much anyone is offering, it’s about the mere prospect of a bidding war shaking loose public purse strings.
To some degree, the surprise is that Warren waited this long to drop the I-word: Indiana, after all, has a long history of shoveling good stadium money after bad, and the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals have already shown what you can get by threatening to hop across state lines. Though the Royals’ game of footsie with Kansas also shows the downside of actually going ahead and making threats concrete: The list of entities opposing a baseball stadium in Overland Park now includes the local telecom company, the national Jewish Community Center Association, the mayor of the city next door, and a “neighbor, friend, mother, community volunteer and former PTO president” who questions whether it would put at risk “safety for our Jewish neighbors.” If Indiana proves to be greater fools, this could work out well for the Bears owners, whether they land a stadium across state lines or use the possibility of one to pressure their home state into coughing up stadium money; if not, they could yet end up heading back home with their tails between their legs.
There are certainly easily accessible places in Hammond, near the casinos, where you could put a football stadium. But if the Bears want to do all those other things, entertainment districts, football villages, etc. Hammond is not where you want to be. That’s not the side of town where the money is. Arlington Heights and downtown are. And the Bears only own land in Arlington Heights.
Hammond is a very long way from Lake Forest in more ways than one.
Indiana will “…prove(s) to be the greater fools…” because many believe the Colts are responsible for the vibrant downtown with hotels and restaurants. In reality, these establishments can’t survive on 8-9 games/weekends per year. Also, people fail to realize that most (if not all) of the state and local taxes generated downtown are within the PSDA (established by the Legislature) and diverted to pay for the venues – Lucas Oil Stadium, Gainbridge Fieldhouse and the Indiana Convention Center. In addition, Braun is off to a rocky start so he’s looking for a win especially in deep blue Northwest Indiana.
I AVOID Northwest Indiana as much as possible, and if da Bears move to Hammond, Gary or Dune Acres, I will definitely never go to a Bears game. Except when they come to State Farm Stadium.
So you’re saying the PSDA is a TIF?
It’s a STIF-plus: both sales and income taxes get redirected.
https://law.justia.com/codes/indiana/2012/title36/article7/chapter31-3/
Glancing at the map… I look forward to the Lakes of the Four Seasons Bears. Or perhaps the Gary Bears, whose new mascot could be a friendly, hirsute man with an appreciation for revealing leather fashion.
Yes, yes. Throwback time. The Gary Staleys. Nobody will know whether it is a sports franchise or a person.
Or even better, the Gary Sandys.
They could drop turkeys from a helicopter at halftime on Thanksgiving.
Will it be effective? Probably.
Is NW Indiana where you want to be? Really? I can’t see it.
If I were Mayor of Chicago, Indiana would be my choice. With Arlington Heights and an entertainment district, there’s at least the possibility that some economic impact will be drawn to the suburbs. But if you put it just over the Chicago border in Hammond, most hotel and restaurant business is likely to stay downtown Chicago with people driving on GameDay. All of the economic impact with $0 on cost
That’s a good point. Who would build a hotel near a stadium that host 10 to 20 events a year. And I’m not sure Indiana would get all the player’s income tax either, since their practice facilities are in Lake Forest, it seem Illinois would still get a cut. And I just can’t imagine the Halas’s moving from Lake Forest to Garry/Hammond.
Although that would be going full circle, since George Halas started out with the Hammond All-Stars, so maybe there would be a desire to return. But I doubt it.
I understand the psychology of it, but putting a central location for a football stadium does not make nearly as much sense as it does for a ballpark or arena. Stadiums are empty most days of the year. Maybe it’s ok that they’re out in the sprawl.
With some vision, that whole bit of Chicago around Soldier Field could be used for something a lot better than a big concrete convention center and a stadium. That could be a whole new lakefront neighborhood.
I’ve been to that convention center many times. It’s nice that they have direct bus lanes from the hotels in the Loop, but otherwise, it is just an enormous concrete box. And, as has been discussed in these pages, conventions are getting smaller (hopefully). I imagine many architects could imagine a new kind of convention center for a new age – smaller, more sunlight, more conducive to human interaction.
The biggest mistake was replacing the white concrete monstrosity with an even uglier rusting steel monstrosity when the former burned down. Then crashing a flying saucer into the former Soldier Field was another jumbo blooper. Whether da Bears move to Arlington Heights, Indiana or back to Decatur will provide an opportunity to clean up the lakefront.
Congratulations to the “state leadership” if they have truly convinced the Bears to bugger off somewhere else.
I realize that the proposed part of Indiana they are considering attempting to fleece is not Indianapolis itself, but are there no territorial protections involved that would require the league (and in this case Indiana’s existing team) to approve this?
I can see the NFL rubber stamping it if it means a couple of billion in free money for one of it’s franchises… but do the Colts have no say in another team moving in?
It seems unlikely, for example, that if another franchise wanted to move to Illinois the Bears would not object in the strongest possible way.
I doubt the NFL would object to free money. They let the Washington team move to Maryland a year after the Ravens moved there. The old football Cardinals floated a move to the Illinois side of the river, but no one takes the GridBirds seriously. Seems the biggest problem would be every dollars Indiana spent on the Bears, it would need to be matched by spending on the Colts too. The NFL might like having Illinois without a team. Then every team wanting a new stadium could threaten to move there.
Indiana built the Hoosier Dome, which was torn down in less than 20 years. Then a huge pile of money for soon to turn 20 Lucas Oil Stadium. A billion for a Lucas Oil renovation and 2 billion for a stadium on an abandoned steel mill makes sense. A lot of suckers are born in Indiana.
Indeed and wait till about 2030 to 2033 or so when the Irsay sisters want another stadium for Indianapolis because Lucas Oil Field which already has roof issues in the past with sheared off bolts when opening it. It won’t be long until they want to enact another tax to build what will be by 2033 to 2038 probably a 5 billion or more dollar stadium. All the while the taxpayers of Indiana but especially those of Indianapolis and the donut counties around Indianapolis have increasing tax bills and have had increasing taxes over the past 20 plus years since the Indiana legislature was of course snookered into building a new stadium in Indianapolis. Remember when Jimbo Irsay the son of Robert who moved them from Baltimore to indianapolis got on a private jet and flew out to Los Angeles to peddle the Colts to the LA crowd when they didn’t have a team from 1995 to 2016. Don’t think that the Irsays if they knew it would be personal enrichment even with billions wouldn’t fly the coop if Indiana didn’t build them another stadium at a cost of several billion dollars in another say 10 to 15 years. At a time when Indiana is cutting public services, cutting aid to disabled care givers and children and families and the State of Indiana has problems with infrastructure including sorry roads in the Crossroads of America.
The Hoosier Dome/RCA Dome opened in 1984 and saw its last game in 2007, so 23 years.
True, but the ChiCardinals were already IN Illinois, not considering moving in from somewhere else.
If the Bears were truly leaving the region, I would agree with your latter point (empty territory that is the third largest metro in the nation)… but they aren’t leaving. They are just moving across a state line (in theory. I don’t believe there is a snowball’s chance in hell they ever actually leave, but if we play along with the political football being orchestrated here…).
You are quite right on the move to Landover… the Ravens were already “in” Maryland (but only just). The stadium construction in Landover began in March of 1996, while the Ravens were incorporated just a month earlier (after a few months negotiations involving the league, the City of Cleveland and Modell, along with noted Baltimorophobe Paul Tagliabue).
I would suggest that narrow window makes this case (in which an existing franchise has been present in the state for 40 years+) quite different from the Washington/Baltimore situation.
That “Washington team” was (and to a degree is) the Washington Redskins.
You don’t need approval to move within 100 miles. Northwest Indiana is basically a suburb of Chicago. Like North Jersey is a suburb of NYC. When Chicago has their Air Show in the summer the planes take off from Gary, Indiana. Gary is less than 30 miles from Soldier Field, but 150 miles from Indiana.
Nope. The NFL bylaws (https://www.onlabor.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/co_.pdf) define “home territory” as a 75-mile radius, but that’s just the exclusive broadcast territory. And rule 4.3 also says:
“No member club shall have the right to transfer its franchise or playing site to a different city, either within or outside its home territory, without prior approval by the affirmative vote of three-fourths of the existing member clubs of the League.”
So the Bears need league approval to move to Arlington Heights or to Gary.
Thanks. I would have thought so… otherwise there would be at least four teams in New York, a second in Chicago and maybe a third in LA.
I assume this applies not just to ‘stadium’ location, but to the presumed host city as well. As an example, the 49ers are nowhere near San Francisco these days… but they should still have exclusive rights to everything within 75 miles of SF (not Santa Clara).
I don’t recall the 49ers, Cowboys, Cardinals, or Lions needing approval for moving within their metro areas, and it hasn’t been mentioned with the Browns either (although their move is literally 1000 feet from the city line.
The Colts really have no say if the Bears move to Lake County because it is within Chicago media market and therefore still within the Bear exclusive market.
Indiana tried this in the 90s. The Bears, City of Chicago, and the State were all stupid when they did the renovation/rebuilding of Soldier Field. They spent more on that than any NFL stadium at the time and they got a monstrosity no one likes and also has the smallest capacity in the league. Detroit built Ford Field at the same time for over $100 million less and no one is talking about replacing it.
The state that saw 4 governors go to federal prison, along with Michael Madigan, obviously has more palms to grease.
I remember when Rod Blagojevich was charged Jon Stewart said he would be the 4th out the last 8 Governors of Illinois to go to prison, whereas only 47% of murderers go to prison so you are more likely to go to prison if you become governor of Illinois than if you kill someone.
If Indiana doesn’t work out, the next shakedown is Kenosha WI north of the border
Don’t ignore the New Buffalo/Grand Beach area of Michigan. Most of those lake houses are Chicago residents’ summer houses. The more leverage, the better
I wish them all the luck anywhere they choose to go, as long as I don’t have to pay for it. If your business can’t be profitable without tax breaks, maybe you need a better business plan.
The City of Chicago will still have all the non-football events at Soldier Field and Indiana will be left with 8 or 9 days a year and nothing else.
Credit One Amphitheater (Tinley Park) only has 20-25 events per year (and we don’t go because its too far). They almost built an airport (Peotone) no one wanted to diversify the economy of the south side and south suburbs. Desperation will drive weird behavior.
Pritzker dgaf
As a resident of Indiana but in the far southern part, I totally object to this waste of taxpayer resources by the yokels in the Indiana state government including the governor and state legislature and mayors and officials in Lake County. That said Indiana is stupid enough to think that this is a win by getting another freeloader team in the Hoosier State. Indiana already has the freeloaders called the Colts and the iterations of the 3rd generation of the Irsay family who ironically came out of Chicago to buy the Rams in 1972 and then trade them for the Colts the same year and they took over the then Baltimore Colts. A team that left Baltimore in 1984 in the middle of the night because Bob Irsay wanted Baltimore to build him a new stadium of which Indy mayor William Hudnut obliged with a 60 million dollar Hoosier Dome in 1984 that they still hadn’t paid totally off when it was demolished in 2008 or so. Typical Hoosier non common sense.
A name that actually didn’t have and shouldn’t have good connotations in the past and obviously shouldn’t now. If you look up the term Hoosier its not a term of endearment when regarding a citizen of Indiana much less anywhere else or in St. Louis its the use of “hoosier” as something resembling white trash which came about because of Indiana Hoosier state residents going to Missouri the early 1900s to 1920s to work as strike breakers and scabs.
Furthermore, this boondoogle won’t create the type of long term investment in Lake and Porter counties that these morons like McDermott, Braun, East Chicago official and Gary Mayor thinks. I grew up in the region many decades ago in the 1970s and 1980s and there is a reason once the steel mills went elsewhere that people had to leave the Region. Frankly, there weren’t enough jobs outside of the steel mills and my family moved to Southern Indiana near Louisville, KY which has its own problems with boondoogles and wasteful spending and incompetence dealing with the Yum Center.
If the morons in Lake County and the Indiana governor’s office think that this will be a win, they are dealing in a pipe dream and taking a lot of copium. Lake County is not someplace you want to spend your time doing tourism. Let’s face it that Gary, IN had 175,000 people in about 1970 and only about 80,000 now and went from the 3rd largest city in Indiana but now to much lower status. The same with Hammond which used to be a much larger city. The amount of things to do or amenities in Lake County minus Merilllville in the Center of the county is lackluster. They do have a casino near Interstate 80/94 known as the Borman Expressway. After that who would go to Gary or even Hammond to do any sort of tourism or spending your financial resources. Both of them were heavily industrial towns in the past and that ship sailed 30 to 40 years ago and there isn’t much to do there other than the occasional restaurant or bar which might end you in bars in either place with the crime problems etc.
Building a 65,000 to 70,000 dollar stadium there isn’t going to be the economic panacea they think it will be and creating an entertainment district in some far flung nasty area of Lake County. If people want real entertainment there is Chicago maximum of 25 to 30 miles to the Loop from either. Also the Bears end up losing some of the Northern suburb fan base because who in the hell wants to leave Waukegan or Skokie or Aurora or Elgin and go all the way to Gary or Hammond. Building a hotel or groups of hotels to make Gary or Hammond a destination for maybe 10 to 20 events a year including 10 Bears games and then some scattered concerts or other things? Really….I mean REALLY? Who would go to Gary or Hammond for entertainment or hotels knowing that both of them are even more crime ridden than parts of Chicago which have their own reputations that precede them?
Also remember that its only about 13 miles from NYC to the Meadowlands. Someone from Chicago and Northern burbs is going to travel as much as 50 to 60 miles one way down to Gary and Hammond? Not to mention the Region which has been economically depressed for the better part of 40 to 45 years. Then again Illinois shouldn’t build them a stadium nor provide for infrastructure around the stadium seeing that the Bears screamed about Soldier Field in the 1990s and then got it renovated and removed some seats and lost its National Historic Landmark designation while crashing a UFO into the stadium and making it look hideous while being the smallest stadium now in the NFL. It used to be Oakland Coliseum and Lambeau but they either no longer exist or have been renovated and expanded as Lambeau has.
This whole adventure is bad for Indiana, its bad for Lake County, its bad for the region, its bad for the taxpayers that will have to pay for the infrastructure and its bad for property owners in Lake County as well in the term of increased taxation while some carpetbaggers from Chicago needed to get a billion plus dollars for their coffers instead of paying for it themselves. Of course being freeloaders while having a team valued at 8.9 BILLION dollars and they can’t pay for the project and cost and instead trying to switch over a fast one on a desperate state of Indiana that has problems fixing roads and has to use chip seal garbage on rural highways because the state mismanages money and gives corporations tax breaks hand over fist. Not to mention Indiana has one of the lowest quality of life indexes in the US and countless other problems. This is foolery by the so called public officials of Indiana. JB Pritzker is correct that a business needs to pay its own way since they make a profit. Otherwise its not the business of taxpayers to pay for this mess.
“A team that left Baltimore in 1984 in the middle of the night because Bob Irsay wanted Baltimore to build him a new stadium of which Indy mayor William Hudnut obliged with a 60 million dollar Hoosier Dome in 1984 that they still hadn’t paid totally off when it was demolished in 2008 or so. Typical Hoosier non common sense.”
Exact same story just transpired again with the Raiders abandoning the public debt on the Oakland Coliseum. We have to consider it a habitual MO with the NFL at this point.
This is a smart move by the Bears, but not a serious one. It is totally about leverage. As Field of Schemes has documented over the years, Indiana will throw a boat load of money at any pro sports team – ie Colts, Pacers, Indiana Eleven etc etc, and ask for little in return. Their public officials have the mentality that a stadium is a great economic development project, notwithstanding decades of evidence to the contrary.
But in the end, the Bears will stay in Illinois, with likely a better deal than the offers currently on the table.
I also wonder what the estate tax bill is from Virginia McCaskey having passed away. I am sure, since she was over 100, they had been planning this for a while
They have, yes. There was an article up a while back about how the McCaskey heirs have already inherited a portion of the team (I can’t remember the exact percentage, but it’s a couple of percent or less for the small holders) and how much is left to inherit as part of VHM’s estate. It’s less than you would think, but still a significant amount of money.
I think it was on the Athletic, but cannot be sure.
Short version: many of the two percenters are believed to have already either borrowed against their holdings or reached an agreement to sell their share long before Granny went to the carousel. I would assume that the only person willing to make such an agreement in advance “already knows they will be approved as owners” (because they already are part owners), but I can’t be certain.
The next couple of years will be interesting times for Bears ownership. It would not surprise me if there is a change in controlling interest before the end of 2027.
It’s Mark Davis’s move. Cash poor NFL owner with a completely unreasonable need to retain control of the team, get any government to subsidize the new stadium, sell shares of the team to another group of suckers while maintaining control of the franchise. Have real cash on hand for first time in your life. Still have a terrible haircut.
Hey Neil, love these articles. The one thing people are missing about this Kevin Warren announcement is that it really isn’t about leverage per se. It’s about providing coverage for the Illinois politicians when they finally do give in and give our hard-earned money away to the Chicago Bears to build in Arlington Heights. “We had to do this to keep the Bears from moving to Indiana.”
And I’m not opposed to the State of Illinois funding SOME of the infrastructure improvements. But the Bears and their stadium & entertainment development will be the primary beneficiary of those improvements and should pay the majority of those costs. Just think how much more valuable that property (owned exclusively by the Bears) becomes after those improvements are made.
And finally, does anyone know what the Bears request for “real estate tax certainty” actually looks like. Being taxed on the full value of the completed stadium development and then asking for some assurances that there might be some limits for future increases is one thing. But asking for guarantees on locking in the rate that they are paying on vacant property is completely different and totally unacceptable.
So just thinking out loud about Indiana. Let’s say they were to pick Gary, Indiana. That was the place they were looking at in the 90s.
I stopped in Gary as I was driving through on my way to Chicago, just to see Michael Jackson’s house. Gary is a barren wasteland. That house was the only building that didn’t look like it needed to be condemned. Since 1960, the city has had a declining population in every census and is down 2/3 of its population since then. If the Bears went there the land would be a lot cheaper, and income taxes and sales taxes are lower there than in Chicago.
If the Bears built a “Bears Town” complex as they talked about in Arlington Heights, Indiana would get income taxes from the players, sales taxes from all the stadium activities, and whatever happens in the surrounding area.
In this case, you can’t argue that it would cannibalize other expenditures there because there literally isn’t anything going on in Gary (I know there was a casino built a few years ago). People who are already going to Bears games at Soldier Field would be going to the new stadium (you may lose some people for whom the 30 minutes is a deal breaker and pick up some others who would be happy to sit inside a dome as opposed to outside in Soldier Field and who are closer to Gary than downtown Chicago so it would even out). So it would be moving Bears-related activity 30 miles east, shifting money taking from other entertainment happening in Gary to the Bears.
-If the Bears built a “Bears Town” complex as they talked about in Arlington Heights, Indiana would get income taxes from the players, sales taxes from all the stadium activities, and whatever happens in the surrounding area.-
About those sales taxes…
In their negotiations with Illinois, the Bears want to keep all the sales taxes for their organization as well as dictate their own property taxes AND they want a billion in infrastructure subsidies not including interest.
I wouldn’t begrudge Gary getting a stadium, that town needs all the help they can get.
But if the demands for Indiana are anything like the above or more, it would be cheaper to buyout Gary, Indiana outright.
The Bears have yet to start construction at Arlington Park because they want a tax abatement from the village of Arlington Heights. In plain English, Da Bears don’t wanna pay property taxes.
Kevin Warren then floats a government-funded sportsball palace along the Chicago lakefront. Season ticket holders were polled on their preferred location and they said “hell no” to Chicago.
Stonewalled in Arlington Heights, stood up by the fanbase, and roadblocked in Springfield, Warren floats a government-funded sportsball palace in northwest Indiana. Meanwhile, ordinary people wonder where they’ll find the money to pay the power bill or buy food for Christmas dinner.
The optics on this are extremely poor and nobody worth a damn will denounce Warren’s scam for what it really is — a supersized subsidy for big business during a cost of living crisis.
“ Meanwhile, ordinary people wonder where they’ll find the money to pay the power bill or buy food for Christmas dinner.”
The Mcaskeys are also wondering how they’re gonna pay for things. At some point these cash poor owners need to go.