The Indiana senate yesterday overwhelmingly passed its bill to create a sports authority for a potential Chicago Bears stadium, and let’s see how the local news media handled it:
WNDU-TV: “Indiana Senate passes Chicago Bears stadium funding bill“
Bzzzzt, nope! The sports authority bill contains no funding at all, though it does describe a bunch of potential funding sources, including “local excise taxes,” which include both vehicle fees and taxes on cigarettes and alcohol, as well as food and beverage and hotel taxes. The state legislature will presumably still have to vote to direct any taxes to the Bears, as well as figure out which taxes to use, which could easily set up a Kansas-style “How big a stadium district and how much of the taxes get counted as ‘new’?” dilemma.
Indianapolis Star: “Indiana Senate approves bill to finance NFL stadium with eye on Chicago Bears“
Not a whole lot better, even if technically “finance” is more accurate than “funding,” since “How will you finance your home purchase?” can be truthfully answered “By taking out a 30-year mortgage” even if the answer to “How will you fund paying off that mortgage?” is “Sell blood plasma, ig?”
Indiana Capital Chronicle: “Indiana’s bid for the Chicago Bears gains momentum with Senate vote“
Getting warmer, if only because “momentum” is such a nebulous term that putting it in a headline becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, since the main measure of momentum is whether it results in headlines about your newfound momentum. The ICC article has more details than the others, at least, including Indiana state senate sponsor Ryan Mishler acknowledging that the bill “just creates the framework” and that “a lot of other details will need to be added,” yeah, no kidding.
None of this quite rises to the level of a competing bid, but it does allow Bears execs to wave an Indiana move threat under Illinois officials’ noses, where it already looks to be having an impact. In fact, a non-offer could be better for the Bears than a real offer, because this way they can use it as leverage for whatever they want from Illinois, rather than Illinois elected officials being able to go, “Okay, what Indiana offered you, plus $1.” Nebulousness is the father of leverage, as Jerry Reinsdorf probably never said, but should have.
I still think any Indiana politician outside of the Gary/Hammond area voting to spend tax money to help a Chicago sports team is writing an attack ad for their opponent. “With all our needs here at home, Mike Braun voted to give your Indiana tax dollars to an Illinois sports team. Send ‘Chicago Mike’ back to Illinois, vote for me.”
I mean the guy won 87 out of 92 counties in his last run. One of the 5 he didn’t win is the one Gary is in. So I don’t think this hurts him at all.
It’s highly unlikely that Lake County alone can fund a new stadium so other Indiana taxpayers will be on the hook. For example, it took 1% F&B tax on most Indy donut counties to fund LOS. Given Braun’s inability to provide significant property tax relief, which he promised in his campaign, tax money diverted to a Chicago team will hurt him.
This is essentially free advertising for Gary, Indiana. I have only been there once, as I was driving to Chicago and wanted to see Michael Jackson’s house. Other than the house, the rest of the area looked like a post-apocalyptic nightmare. But watching the mayor make his pitch and talking about the companies that have set up shop there recently, it may catch other companies’ eyes as a place to set up shop. Like, Toronto didn’t get Amazon HQ2, but other companies saw the presentation and started calling the economic development folks
“This is essentially free advertising for Gary, Indiana!”
Professor Harold Hill, Gary Conservatory of Music, Class of ’05
If there were a like button I would have smashed it so hard for that comment
I keep pestering my state representatives to create the California Sasquatch Conservation Board, even if we don’t manage to fund it right away. No movement yet, but this gives me hope
Incredibly funny footnote:
The Indiana Senate bill that passed on Wednesday prohibits the Bears from “project labor agreements” between unions and contractors. Labor unions (who are among the few non-finance, non-developer, non-governmental people who actually support megaprojects like this) are furious:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/29/indiana-unions-chicago-bears-stadium-bill-cuts-us-out/
I really cannot understand how the Bears are so *bad* at this.
As a Chicago taxpayer I say “Go for it Indiana”.
This is beyond ridiculous and shows (as if we didn’t already know) just how little some of these owners actually care about team pride and being unique.
That’d be like the Steelers moving their stadium to Youngstown. They might not be in the same conference but the states are 100% rivals.