The Bears are asking fans to weigh in on a potential move to Northwest Indiana.
The team sent a survey to season ticket holders, gauging their interest in a new stadium development across the border.
An email reads, in part, “The Chicago Bears are exploring the opportunity to create a new stadium and mixed-use entertainment district in Northwest Indiana.”
It says that access from major roads would be convenient.
There would be up to 15-thousand parking spaces, designed for tailgating.
That's more than twice the number at Soldier Field.
The email says “the vision includes a modern, fan-first stadium experience surrounded by a vibrant neighborhood destination.”
The team poses a number of questions designed to gauge interest, asking fans how they feel on a scale of “very negative” to “very positive.”
It also asks if the season ticket holders would buy season tickets if the team were to move to Indiana.
When Bears President and CEO Kevin Warren penned an “open letter” last month, outlining plans to look beyond Chicago and Arlington Heights, he said it was “not about leverage.”
He wrote that the team has not asked for taxpayer dollars to build a stadium, “just a commitment to infrastructure and reasonable taxes.”
He wrote that he was told that a stadium project is “not a priority” of lawmakers.
Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch told WBBM at the time that
it was about leverage, saying “the Bears are trying leverage” the state of Indiana against Illinois.
“The Chicago Bears are an iconic Illinois institution,” Welch said, “and for more than a century they’ve been part of our state’s identity, our economy and our culture and certainly Illinois wants them to stay and their fan base wants them, to stay and I was a little disappointed that Kevin called to pull the same ploy that the Kansas City Chiefs are using on the state of Missouri.”
Welch said “you have to continue the conversations.”
“Timing is everything,” he said, considering the state of the economy and the affordability crisis, adding that “it would be tone deaf if we were focused on providing public money for billionaires to build a stadium.”
An Indiana State Representative behind legislation that established the Northwest Indiana Professional Sports Development Commission, with an eye toward luring the Bears over the border, Earl Harris Jr., suggests that the fact that the team is surveying fans shows that it is not using Indiana as “leverage” to get a new stadium built in Arlington Heights or Chicago.
Indiana Governor Mike Braun took to social media last month expressing that he would like to “get it done.”
Braun wrote, "The Chicago Bears recognize Indiana’s pro-business climate, and I am ready to work with them to build a new stadium.”