If last Friday’s announcement that the Chicago Bears were “advancing” a stadium project in Hammond, Indiana was meant to end debate about where the team’s new home will be, it’s not working. If it was meant to stir up debate, by reigniting the bidding war that fizzled when the Illinois legislature declined to pass a big tax subsidy bill, it’s going gangbusters.
Among this week’s developments:
- Hammond Mayor Tom McDermott said Bears execs are still looking at multiple sites in Hammond, including the site of the current Lost Marsh Golf Course.
- Porter County Commissioner Jim Biggs said Indiana’s plan to raise food and beverage and hotel taxes in his county, which does not include Hammond, would face a tough road to approval by the county commission: “To collect millions of dollars here and send it across county lines for something like a sports stadium … why would we do that? We have our own problems to deal with.” In Lake County, meanwhile, which does include Hammond, the president of the county council — yes, there’s a council and a commission for each Indiana county, go look at the org charts if you dare — said while he’s in favor of raising taxes to fund the Bears, it likely won’t happen much before the June 2027 deadline set by the state authorizing legislation. (Combined the hotel and food/beverage tax hikes would generate about $20 million a year, which would be enough to pay off about $300 million worth of stadium costs.)
- Illinois State Rep. Dan Ugaste announced plans to introduce a new bill to provide property tax breaks and sales-tax-backed bonds for “megaprojects” costing over $500 million — just like the rejected bill did, so it’s unclear why he thinks this one has a better shot at passage. [CORRECTION: The original bill included any project over $100 million, so maybe that’s what Ugaste thinks will make the difference here; though the project size threshold wasn’t one of the things that torpedoed the last bill, so maybe not.]
- Illinois Gov JB Pritzker said he would consider calling a special session of the legislature to pass a Bears stadium bill, saying, “The Bears would like to see something happen, and we all do too.”
So the Indiana stadium plans still don’t have final legislative approval or an agreed-on site, while in Illinois … pretty much the same. (Indiana did pass a state bill in February, but it left a lot of the funding details as TBD.) I was interviewed on Illinois radio station WMBD yesterday, and the last question when we were running out of time was “Where do you think the Bears will end up?” I answered, “I’m not placing bets on anything, because this is honestly still very early in the whole process,” and I’m going to stick with that: It looks clearer than ever like the Bears owners are still in the tire-kicking phase of this stadium shakedown, and there are likely many more twists and turns to come.
Meanwhile, Greg Hinz of Crain’s Chicago Business claims that the Bears moving to Indiana could be good news for White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, since it would free up existing hotel tax money that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson wants to use for a new lakefront Bears stadium. Yes, “freeing up” money that is being targeted for a project nobody except the mayor wants to build is a kind of nebulous concept, and yes, Hinz is the same guy who previously gave Reinsdorf tons of runway to argue for public money for a new White Sox stadium. Still, it’s a reminder that any time an elected official mentions a potential pot of taxpayer funds, local business leaders will smell blood in the water and come running with their hands out.
(And yes, I know that sharks can’t run and don’t have hands. It’s been a hectic week, allow me my mixed metaphors.)
Wasn’t the threshold in the rejected megaprojects bill $100 million? In that case, it would have applied to a whole lot of projects outside of stadiums
Oh, good catch. Will amend.
Illinois Representative Martin McLaughlin made news a few days ago with a vague proposal to keep the Bears in Illinois. It said something about protecting taxpayers (by getting “business leaders in the room,” while also proposing to spend even more on infrastructure than the original plan.
https://capitolfax.com/2026/06/09/rate-the-idea/
PLEASE let me buy a corner condo near the new Hammond Bears stadium. I will adore the corner with the BP Whiting refinery on one side and the ExxonMobil bulk oil storage facility on the other corner. Maybe the BP refineries can have their flares shoot up 500 feet when da Bears score a touchdown. Imagine falling asleep ever night to the smell of Sulpur knowing that millions of barrels of oil and products are moving through pipelines virtually under your bed and being unloaded from tank cars and being refined into gasoline while you sleep. EVERYBODY will be leaving Chicago to live in such a lovely place as Hammond and Whiting.
Wolf Lake is pretty sweet for windsurfing, but I wouldn’t want to live next to it. Especially since I’m terrible at windsurfing.
I am willing to bet that you aren’t worse at windsurfing than the Bears have historically been at professional football. Sure, the occasional playoff appearance manages to slip through the net, but by and large, they are vacationing in January most years.
If the new stadium the Mayor wants to pay for – err, wants Chicago taxpayers to pay for – is going to be a fixed roof facility, why does it have to be on the lakefront?
If it is going to be a fully enclosed facility, it could be anywhere. For a couple billion, you could make it all sphere like… with the interior east wall a video board that shows live webcam footage of the lake during games… and build it literally anywhere but the lakefront.
In fact, why does it have to display the lakefront? Why not have the video wall show live shots from Vegas or Venice Beach. Or central Rome (the Italian one, not…)!
Ok, who am I kidding? It’s going to running online gambling ads 24/7 isn’t it?
It’s 2050 and da Bears are complaining about their Hammond stadium. The surrounding development has failed due to crime, and Bears fans are complaining about driving 2 hours to a refinery complex wasteland. Indiana, we’ll stay if you provide billions in subsidies for our failed development and a billion dollar stadium renovations or we’ll move back to Illinois. Moving to Indiana isn’t a viable threat, unless the objective is to have a contest with the Colts to see which team can get Indiana to throw more money down a rathole.
In 20 years the Bears will pull a Washington Commanders and try to get an even bigger better deal to move back to the city. You really can’t lose if you’re an NFL team.
The old McDome idea from the 1990s is probably the best solution, except it would probably cost about 10 billion dollars now. It involved building a stadium above the truck marshaling lot, and the south shore rail road just south of the convention center. The convention center authority would never admit it, but they could probably tear down some of their capacity to make room for a stadium. There just aren’t that many big shows anymore.
Sigh. I miss the old days when stadium extortion was easy. You grease a few pols and yell “OMG LOS ANGELES!” and here comes the public stadium cash baby! It was so easy then.
Now you gotta try to play some podunk Illinois towns that don’t know their asses from their elbows off against a toxic waste dump in Hammond that you’re pretending is a great site for a stadium. Well, it’s the McCaskeys, what did you expect anyway?
I think we need to start threatening to move teams to London. That should get those legislators snapping to attention.
It’s a bit of a drive from the Loop, but sure, why not?
https://www.google.com/maps/place/London,+IN+46126/@39.6554685,-91.1886176,6z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x886b3f777df628a3:0x8d2ad3667f03a6d3!8m2!3d39.6254862!4d-85.9189549!16s%2Fm%2F0491pm3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDYxNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D