Are people still flipping out about Chicago Bears management acknowledging that Indiana is next door to Illinois and they could try to build a stadium there if they wanted? Yep. Does that mostly come down to “fans in Indiana would be happy with a shorter drive and those in Chicago would be unhappy with a longer one”? Yep.
We’ll get back to the Bears in a sec, but first the latest in a more advanced cross-state NFL team location battle:
- A Kansas legislator says the state’s Legislative Coordinating Council, a joint committee of leaders of the state house and senate, is set to meet on Monday to discuss a proposed agreement between the state and the Chiefs on a new stadium, though the state commerce department cautions that “no final agreement has been reached.” The Missouri Independent says the committee could start the process of approving state-backed STAR bonds at its Monday meeting, though the state already approved those in concept last year, and it doesn’t seem possible to actually sell specific bonds without a specific agreement in place, so not clear on what could actually get decided on Monday. Mostly, this seems to be a way for the legislature to declare that Chiefs owner Clark Hunt has met the required end-of-2025 deadline to be eligible for the bonds — as has Royals owner John Sherman, apparently, despite no concrete stadium plans at all, given that committee chair Ty Masterson’s office said he believes the Royals have met the deadline by being “fully committed” to Kansas. Some sort of announcement of a Chiefs deal on Monday seems likely, but it’s also likely that a lot of details will still need to be worked out, so let’s hold off on the “Chiefs are moving to Kansas” headlines for the — never mind, too late.
- Back in Illinois, state officials are taking talk of a Bears stadium in Indiana in stride, with State Rep. Kam Buckner (district includes Soldier Field, is opposed to stadium subsidies) calling the team’s move threat “very predictable” and saying “in negotiations, what you do is you create leverage by saying you have more options,” while State Rep. Mary Beth Canty (has sponsored a bill to allow for stadium subsidies in Arlington Heights) asked that the Bears “engage with the General Assembly in good faith, without threats.” State Sen. Bill Cunningham, meanwhile, called giving the Bears a property tax break (but not necessarily all the infrastructure money team execs are asking for) “a good starting point” because it would only be local, not state, tax money, but said “we have more important things to tackle first.” It certainly sounds like the Bears owners can get something out of Illinois, even it not everything they’re demanding; dropping an Indiana move threat may help them get on the legislative agenda, which may be all they want, but there’s still a whole lot of haggling to go.
- Cleveland’s Gateway sports authority is facing an estimated $150 million in imminent repair costs for the Guardians stadium and Cavaliers arena, plus another $261 million over the next decade, and has no money on hand to pay for these costs and no plans for how to raise it. Not great! The city and county cover capital repairs while the teams cover maintenance, so there’s still the possibility of haggling over which is which. The government taking on all capital repairs during the teams’ 2004 lease renegotiations still seems like a terrible idea, and Gateway just defaulting on this and daring the teams to break their leases (which expire in 2034 and 2036 anyway) early seems like a reasonable consideration compared to throwing $400 million in good money after bad, but nobody’s talking about that just yet.
- The Dodger Stadium gondola project refuses to die, year after year after year. “NBC Los Angeles reports that during the meeting, project supporters waved signs reading ‘Build the gondola’ while opponents held signs saying ‘Stop the gondola’,” can’t we come to some sort of compromise?
- Inter Miami‘s new stadium is finally set to open next spring, but the promised accompanying public park space won’t be ready yet, seen that one before.
- And then there’s Germany, where when a pro women’s soccer team needs a bigger stadium, the team owners buy the one that a recently relegated men’s team is no longer using plays in. It was built way back in 1992, can you imagine how outdated the Getränkehalters must be?
In the late 1960s there was a pie in the sky proposal to build a multi-purpose floating stadium in Seattle’s Elliott Bay, complete with a ferry terminal!
If you google it some of the renderings are amazing, inspiration for today’s vaportecture.
I’m thinking, if the Bears want to get crazy with their demands, build the floating stadium and then get the states to bid on it. Heck, we can throw WI and MI into the mix as well, get those sweet, sweet tax dollars to their coffers.
Pleasant Prarie is actually a better location for current Bears season ticket holders than Gary. It would be interesting to have both da Bears and a certain other team in Wisconsin.
I like it. I like it a lot.
If you built a floating stadium on Lake Michigan, you could play off several potential home states for operating subsidies on a weekly basis.
If you positioned the stadium close to state lines, you could even pull a PBS pledge drive trick straight out of the 70s…. “you won’t see the 4th quarter until you cough up a donation”.
Or better yet:
“We are going to sail 200 yards into the next state for the overtime unless all you fans come up with a couple of hundred bucks to throw into the hat. Come on! It’s gonna cost you that much in cab fare to get back to your cars if you refuse anyway….”
Wait a sec … !! You mean the Bears could build a floating stadium on Lake Michigan, and move it around to the highest bidders? One season near Chicago, the next season just off the beach in Gary, Ind.
I have always liked Benton Harbor up the coast in Michigan . . .
San Diego Padres and Chargers investigated that. It sounds cooler than it is.
Great idea, it could possibly be setting the stage for an even more epic sequel to the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
Omg it’s Bluthden!
https://www.king5.com/article/entertainment/television/programs/evening/seattles-floating-stadium/281-0a5c45b4-47f9-425f-8e01-4661cc54e5db
George Sr. would be furious if he discovered this infringement!
What’s broken in Cleveland that’s going to cost 150 million to repair? I suspect it is more like a bigger scoreboard because the Mets and O’s got one, Wifi7 because Wifi6 is five years old already.
An excellent question — Cleveland.com didn’t link to the assessment, and it hasn’t appeared on Gateway’s website yet:
https://www.gwcomplex.org/
Just like the unfixable roof that doomed Chase Field to the wrecking ball. Until the Dbacks realized they weren’t going to get a new stadium and suddenly found a way to fix the roof.
Here’s a variation on a theme (and yes, it’s behind a paywall at the Atlantic, sorry).
This stadium is being partially rebuilt for a (relatively compared to today’s large sums) small amount…. Using recycled airplane bodies.
Sometimes you can’t make this stuff up.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6875333/2025/12/18/strasbourg-stadium-decomissioned-planes/
I almost linked to that one today, but it seemed too far out of scope. It’s entertaining, though:
https://archive.ph/PZ7HK
I figured you were on it. ;)
And thanks for the free link.
Since 1992, the Braves and Rangers have moved stadiums in the same metro area twice.
insanity
While I get the point you’re making about the stadium in Germany, the description isn’t quite accurate. SpVgg Unterhaching (the men’s soccer team that plays there) is still using the stadium, what has changed is they’re now tenants of Bayern Munich instead of the municipality of Unterhaching (a southern suburb of Munich). SpVgg Unterhaching had tried to buy the stadium from the municipality (who wanted to sell the stadium) but the price was out of reach for them.
Also the stadium has undergone two renovations since 1992, the first was a required expansion when the men’s team unexpectedly qualified for Germany’s top league in 1999-2000, the second renovation in 2018-19 was needed repairs for safety to keep the stadium open.
But the important part for us here (the point you were making) is how different the situation is between the municipality and the teams are compared to North America, how the municipality is doing what makes financial sense for itself compared to the insanity that occurs over here.
Thanks for the clarification — the article I saw didn’t spell all that out. And yes, the overall point still stands.
The Illinois Indiana State Line Bears
HEADLINE: Friends of Dorothy Welcome Racist Trope
It’s not about winning or sports it’s a big tax games and investment/ money scene by the owners and leagues and wall street investors.
Al Davis, iconic NFL executive, built the very system these owners fended with and maybe hated. He fought thus and the owners almost control the Daiders and a HOF GM(Al) had worst team in NFL last 9 years of his career and team is worst in league
Well, the tv tells me that today “the Chiefs announced an agreement to move to Kansas”.
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/47391840/kansas-lawmakers-approve-proposal-help-chiefs-build-new-stadium
Laura knows the Chiefs aren’t “ours”, right? And that KCK is actually a suburb of KCM?
Sounds more like KCK approved the money end of it. Not sure that this has the “finality” that some seem to think…
PS: “Missouri” has said ‘we won’t give up’. Not encouraging (for Missouri taxpayers).
Still, assuming the team does move, this is truly a great, great day for KCM taxpayers. They can still go watch the team, but they don’t have to pay $3Bn for a stadium.
It’s a beautiful thing.