Elsewhere in arbitrary deadlines, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is suddenly all about meeting them now that Chicago Bears execs have threatened to move the team to Indiana. In response to team officials wanting even more concessions in the state megaprojects bill that could already give them $2 billion in tax breaks, the governor said Friday:
“I can tell you that there is a need for speed here. We need to move somewhat expeditiously. I realize the Senate has some to work to do and there will be amendments, no doubt about it,” Pritzker said.
Pritzker didn’t totally hold a gun to his own head and threaten to shoot: He also noted that there’s no way to be sure that the Bears would go ahead and move to Indiana just because they don’t get everything they want in an Illinois stadium subsidy bill. Though the governor then added, “Having said that, if there is not true progress that gets made, if it isn’t obvious to people that the Senate is moving in the right direction, I think that will make it challenging,” which is absolutely trying to light a fire under the state legislature to give the bad man what he wants or he may take your team away.
One of the main stumbling blocks is a 9% amusement tax added in the Illinois House version of the bill, which Bears officials are vehemently opposed to. As well you might think they would be: As covered here previously, ticket taxes almost entirely end up coming out of team owners’ pockets, so this would force Bears owner George McCaskey to cover a larger share of any stadium construction cost.* Pritzker now thinks this would be a bad thing, or at least a thing that would make it “challenging” to get Bears officials to agree to a deal, despite insisting that “the Bears want to be in Illinois.” Remember when Pritzker was insisting that Illinois wouldn’t even consider helping build a new stadium until McCaskey first paid off the remaining debt on Soldier Field? He sure doesn’t want you to!
*CORRECTION: The entertainment tax is apparently a sales tax surcharge on the surrounding district, not the stadium itself, which would be far less of a hit to the Bears owners’ wallets; I’ll explain in greater detail in a later post. Sorry for the error, I was unable to find the legislation language and was going by unclear media reports.
Keep the ticket tax. Double it. And extend it to ticket re-sales. If the Bears balk, just say, “well we tried, but they didn’t want to pay their taxes, so they’re Indiana’s burden now.” It might lose the team, but it would win the political argument.
I’m a sports fan. I like football.
But whether I am a Chicago resident and/or Bears fan or not, I don’t want other people’s taxes (or mine) forcibly confiscated to support a highly profitable private business…. particularly one that might be competing with my own enterprise for discretionary entertainment spending.
I can understand the rationale behind providing “some” infrastructure money (though most other entertainment businesses and private residents pay for their own infrastructure), but not all.
I can even understand why franchise owners want some form of property tax abatement (on the facility itself), as it is not ‘in use’ 320-350 days a year like many other businesses are or can be.
But there has to be a limit. And the limit should be the point at which you are no longer sure the “spin off” revenues (if any exist) are enough to cover the city or state’s obligations. Ticket taxes are an excellent way to improve that point.
I couldn’t care less whether McCaskey wants to pay his taxes or not. If it’s a “35 year” non relocation agreement, then over that 35 years the Bears need to pay enough for the locals to recover their full subsidy and whatever property tax agreement is made.
I know the standard argument is that “it’s a publicly owned building so there are no property taxes”, but anyone familiar with triple net leases knows that taxes (or an amount in lieu of) can and often are payable by tenants directly or, in the case of residential tenants, often indirectly.
In the end, the Bears are just a tenant. They shouldn’t be such deadbeat tenants and Pritzker damn well knows it.
Teams prey on our collective outsized passion for sports over things like infrastruture and public safety and eduction. We lose our minds when it comes to the thought of not being “a major league city.”
Call their bluffs. Last I looked, San Diego is still a pretty nice place to live (and would be as expensive with or without the Chargers).
Cleavon Little, look what you started….
It’s an open secret that the Bears don’t *really* want to move to Indiana; otherwise, they wouldn’t still be holding out for a “competing” offer from the Illinois side of the border.
This is one of the few ways where being a big-market team can actually be a curse. This isn’t a Jacksonville situation, where a small-market team (ostensibly) has bigger, more lucrative cities to move to, and therefore has some leeway to demand more from a desperate one-horse sports town. Nobody actually believes the Bears will move out of the Chicago market, so their options for stadium shakedowns, and the type of deals they can get, might end up being more limited and less satisfactory than they’d like.
The mayor of Hammond insisting the Bears would too move to his city was sadly hilarious:
https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/were-not-being-played-hammond-mayor-pushes-back-on-bears-stadium-skepticism/3927679/
But even with an unserious threat, it looks like the Bears owners are likely to end up pocketing billions of dollars that they otherwise wouldn’t have, just by saber-rattling. Maybe not as many billions as they’d like, but still, first world problems.
True, but Dean Spanos has spent a great deal of time telling the world he really didn’t want to leave San Diego. From his new office/spot in LA
His team is always going to be the poor sister in LA. But could it be more valuable as “Cousin Eddie” in LA than it would be in a smaller and largely self funded stadium San Diego?
He must think so. Or at very least he didn’t want to have both the Rams and Raiders just up the road (again) to compete with.
We’ll never know what might have happened if he had put his foot down and said “No, we are staying in San Diego and will put up $5-600m ourselves to fund most of the stadium. As with the A’s in Oakland, there was a deal to be made if the owner really wanted to stay.
So if the Bears do end up in a toxic waste dump outside Hammond, no-one will be laughing harder than I will. Not even the Chicago pols who no longer have to worry about paying for a Bears stadium for the second time in 25 years.
Chargers have put their Los Angeles relocation to good use. All games on TV in San Diego. Club offices and practice site in El Segundo, which is near LAX. Even had a home game vs. Kansas City moved to Brazil so they could bring in more money when they hosted a pair of teams from the NFC East.
That has proven more effective than sportswriters and fans rehashing the tired (and discredited) trope about the Raiders and L.A.
Is Pritzker really worried about the upcoming governor election or even how this will impact if he wants to run for president? All the tough talk about doing what’s right for the taxpayers seems to gone out the window and while not completely surprising as politicians love handing money to sports teams, this reversal is really disappointing
He removed toilets in a mansion he owned to make it “uninhabitable” to lower the property tax bill. He has a nine figure net worth.
Hellinois is a one party state where a vast swath of rural land is denied any form of self determination. He’s not going to lose an election.
Was that in the same year he lost $1.4m at the tables in Vegas???
Correction, he won $1.4 million playing blackjack in Las Vegas. And declared it on his taxes.
Tax payer money for a Bears stadium is not a winner for Pritzker. It’s not a popular in the Chicago or downstate. It’s only popular among the sports media.