The Indiana bill to approve taxpayer funding of a new Chicago Bears stadium in Hammond passed the state house by a 95-4 vote yesterday, and it seems inevitable that it will pass the senate as well and be signed into law by Gov. Mike Braun by the end of the week. At which point … what, exactly?
Senate Bill 27, as the Indiana stadium legislation is known, would create a sports authority with the power to sign an agreement with Bears ownership to provide a huge pile of public money — hotel and food and beverage tax surcharges, a ticket tax, and property, sales, and income and other tax money from an omni-TIF district of indeterminate size — toward the construction of a new stadium. (Economist Geoff Propheter has estimated the total public cost at more than $4 billion, but also says there’s no way to truly know the full number without knowing the size of the tax diversion district.) It would be up to Bears owner George McCaskey to then decide whether to actually sign such a deal with the state, which could happen at any point in the future, at the state stadium board’s discretion; the city of Hammond would then have to vote to create the stadium tax district and the ticket tax.
Why would McCaskey turn down such a lucrative offer? Lots of reasons: He might not actually want to move the Bears so far from their fan base in Chicago’s western suburbs. He might not want to have to put up the reported $2 billion he would have to for a Hammond dome (though it’s likely he’d recoup a bunch of that via the public tax money). Or he might think he can get a better deal in Illinois.
And “better” doesn’t necessarily have to mean involving more public cash. Don’t forget that in 1999, Robert Kraft announced he was moving the New England Patriots to Hartford, Connecticut before switching gears and remaining in Massachusetts. And while it has since been reported that this happened after Kraft discovered it would take longer than he’d hoped to demolish a steam plant on the proposed stadium site, it’s also true that in the meantime he’d used the threat of a move to Connecticut both to convince the state of Massachusetts to give him a somewhat increased subsidy, as well as to arm-twist the NFL into letting big-market teams use money they would otherwise have to share with the league to instead pay for stadiums that would them to stay put in their current markets. (The NFL’s initial version of its G-3 stadium program, in fact, covered the top six TV markets at a time when Boston was #6; it was created by a committee whose chair was Robert Kraft.)
If McCaskey is just leading Indiana on in hopes of winning a bigger dowry from Illinois, he’ll get his first evidence of whether it’s working when an Illinois state committee meets tomorrow to vote on letting Arlington Heights bestow property tax breaks on a Bears stadium pr0ject. That in itself is not likely to get a stadium there done — Bears execs have insisted they also need $855 million in state money for things like new roads and commuter rail changes — unless, of course, this is another Patriots situation where the NFL owner will be happy to grab whatever concessions he can get in the place he wants. If he’s even decided what he wants, of course, and there’s no rule saying he has to until it’s time to put pen to lease paper
That’s a very long-winded way of saying that this is likely only the start of the Bears stadium battle, not the end. Do try to keep that in mind when you read headlines late this week declaring that the team’s move to Indiana is complete; we’ve seen those before, and they don’t always work out the way everyone expected.
My prediction: Bears select Arlington Heights in the next couple of weeks. Jerry Reinsdorf (or eventual owner Ishbia) start making noise the very next day about the billions in unclaimed Indiana money
You can’t compare football to baseball. Only the Rangers, Royals, and Braves are outside of downtown
Reinsdorf or Ishbia is going to look really hard at this option, but it feels like a big stretch for me. The Sox have a better chance of going to Nashville and being successful than moving to Hammond and having a ballpark experience like this.
If you’re counting the Royals, I would argue the Rays, Brewers, Mets, Phillies, Marlins, current White Sox, and Angels, would also qualify as not being “downtown”. Cubs and yankees too.
Nevertheless, my point is that while they’ve been mostly silent lately, the White Sox are in the market for a new stadium. If the decision comes down to paying for it themselves in the city or take the already approved free $2 billion from Indiana to build a stadium pretty close to their Southside fan base, my money would be on them taking the money.
It’d be really tough to sell tickets to a Tuesday night game in Indiana when everyone has to figure out how to get there after work and back home afterwards.
Reinsdorf would totally use it as a threat to get a Chicago stadium approved, though.
I don’t know how the distance compares from the White Sox current stadium, but two guys drove from Soldier Field to the proposed site and it was less than 30 minutes. As the Sox are based on the southern side of the city, it should be even closer.
If you’re driving, sure. The current Sox stadium is right on the El red line, though, so anyone wanting to take public transit would be out of luck in Indiana.
Plus, even if you’re driving, you’d need to figure out how to get out of the city after work during rush hour and then back home again to wherever you live. Indiana is a much more workable site for the Bears, who don’t play many weeknight home games.
Driving distance from the old stadium to the proposed new stadium is a useful metric if you are living in a stadium. Driving time from Schaumburg, Evanston, Naperville, etc. are more useful metrics for where fans actually live. I live in the city but as a fan I’m keenly aware that many fans do not. These are the kind of fans teams like because they have many kids and a lot of money.
Cook County obviously has the largest population in Illinois (5 million). Four of the next 5 largest counties in Illinois are west (DuPage, 900k; Kane 500k) and north (Lake, 700k; McHenry, 300k) of Cook, which means further away from Hammond than Bridgeport.
So lets say someone is in Aurora or Naperville or Elgin (2nd, 3rd and 6th largest cities). Aurora/Naperville to Hammond is a drive I’ve taken before and it’s about an hour and change. Elgin is about the same distance. From Lake County, Waukegan is about an hour and a half.
Keep in mind that things like parking and idling around are part of the experience; this is just pure drive time.
So I’m thinking fewer people work downtown than before, but wherever you’re working, let’s say your daily work commute is about 30 minutes. You get off work at 5pm on a Thursday, drive 30 minutes home, shower and change, load the car up with the kids, drive 1.5 hours to Hammond, do the park/idle thing for a breezy 15 minutes and barely make it before a 7:30 start time. You enjoy the game and drive 1.5 hours home again.
You will have spent 3.5 hours on the road, conservatively another half hour getting to/from your car, idling around, etc. You have eaten ballpark food and not gone anywhere else for food to contribute to the tax authority of Hammond Indiana, but still will have spent 4 hours getting to and from a game that takes about 2 hours to play. The game can’t really start before 7:30ish, will end at 9:30ish and you’re getting home not a second before 11pm on a weeknight if you schedule everything perfectly.
Seems like a big ask.
Rangers, Braves, and kinda technically the Rays are unreasonable distances from the major downtown business districts in their regions. This makes getting to a game after work difficult. There’s pretty lackluster public transportation to these stadiums. It doesn’t make sense in MLB to make getting to 81 games onerously difficult. Hammond would be ridiculous for the Sox but it’s not a huge ask for bears fans- just look at all the NFL teams that play on the edges of their metro areas
Hartford’s mayor, 1998:
“If Kraft pulls the carpet out from under us down the road, then he does,” Peters said. “But I don’t see that happening.”
How’d.
That.
Work.
Out.
For.
Ya?
In a take it for what it’s worth story, there is already “a plan” for how to use soldier field as a concert venue and have the bears pay for some of it, because they’d be breaking their lease.
This is all kind of amusing.
https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/exclusive-chicago-park-district-pitches-630-million-plan-post-bears-soldier-field#
I like how Mike Braun touts the Bears moving to Indiana because it’s a low tax state, while also slapping a bunch of new taxes and fees on Lake County to land the Bears.
Illinois has a state income tax of 4.95%. Indiana has a state income tax of 3.05%, but Lake County, IN has a county income tax of 1.50%. Bit of sleight of hand by the governor.
Marion County, IN has a county income tax of 2.02%, so a person living in Indianapolis pays a higher income tax than a person living in Chicago.
Thanks for the income tax info. Indiana claims to have low taxes, and then some counties sneak in income taxes that double the rate. Pay almost as much in tax as Illinois and the end up driving on fabulous Indiana roads. This is also the state that sold its toll road to a Spanish company and pulled that Louisville toll bridge stunt. More reasons to stay away from those Indiana geniuses.
Lake Wolf in Hammond, Indiana is near a superfund site.
There’s no way you put a stadium there. The fact that the media has not poked holes in the entire narrative shows how much American journalism has fallen
So, the superfund can be the naming rights sponsor!
It’s Synergy in action. Or inaction. Something something synergy anyway.
The Meadowlands was also built on a dump site. The Giants had 4 players diagnosed with cancer in their first few years there, so they did a study to see if there was a connection.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/bears-stadium/2026/02/24/soldier-field-renovation-post-chicago-bears-era-illinois-general-assembly
Article in Chicago Sun Times features quotes from IL State Sen Robert Peters:
“There’s a fallacy that sports stadiums are this huge economic driver.”
“Indiana is willing to tax working-class people to pay for billionaires’ new stadium”
“I personally am never going to support tax giveaways to build a new stadium.”
That’s why I think the Bears are going to have a hard time. A taxpayer funded stadium is not popular in the Chicago area, or downstate. The Bears are going to need to do a lot of fluffing to make this popular, and that’s a skill the McCaskey’s just don’t have.
I think Chicagoans are real tired of this. Beyond the sport talk radio crew, I’m getting the sense that folks are super annoyed with this story. My thought is the people of Arlington Heights are gonna be super mad through this whole process.
That’s why I think the Bears are more likely to end up in Hammond than many seem to think. The politics over this in Springfield are contentious. Chicago-based and suburban legislators know corporate handouts are unpopular, and the Illinois legislature won’t just roll over to the extent Indiana did. It took them ages to approve public transit funding last year, which was bipartisan, less complicated and had a lot more economic impact. The McCaskeys may get all of the necessary approval in Springfield eventually, but it’ll cost a lot more, look ugly, and take a while — all while Hammond is sitting there.
Right. Usually there’s a trading process between Chicago, the suburbs and downstate. A little of this for the city, a little of that for the suburbs, and little something for everyone else. But in the Bears case, there’s no game to be played. All three factions are against it. They’re going to have to take a lot less, or learn to speak Hoosier. You could try a massive “Build Illinois” scheme. Transit money for the city, stadium for the suburbs, highway and hospital money for everyone. But there’s no appetite or money for that right now. And those types of deals take years to put together.
The question for McCaskey does appear to be: “Would you rather have a shot at your preferred location, or get a couple of billion dollars right now?”
I’m not sure how he’d answer that. A lot will likely depend on how much of his own money he’d have to devote to an Indiana stadium, and right now we know next to nothing about that. (It’s been reported that he would put in $2B, but not how much of that he would get back from siphoning off Indiana taxes.)