Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson had a lot of sports fans talking after his appearance Wednesday on our Audacy sister station 104.3 The Score, when he admitted leaving Soldier Field early during a Bears game last season, only to miss a typical eleventh-hour comeback for the home team. He was making a not-inaccurate point about what he called the "brutal" ingress and egress for the Museum Campus, and the need for improvements to make it easier for visitors, but the callers who fuel The Score wasted no time calling in to accuse the mayor of being a fake fan.
However, it's hard to argue that leaders of the Chicago Bears aren't doing the same thing ... with respect to the team's hunt for a new home.
Just before 11:30 am on Friday, a statement from Chairman George McCaskey and CEO Kevin Warren said the team's board of directors voted Thursday to advance its stadium project in Hammond. "We believe a world-class stadium project in Hammond will transform the region, connecting Northwest Indiana to the South Side of Chicago through the Loop and across neighborhoods and suburbs stretching north," said the statement.
Just five days earlier, the Illinois Legislature adjourned the spring session without reaching a consensus on the best mix of incentives designed to make it more attractive for the team to build a new stadium on the Arlington Park property it bought three years ago. At the time, Senate President Don Harmon said constituents had made it clear that they wanted leaders to do what they could to keep the Bears in Illinois, as long as it didn't involve the use of taxpayer money. "There was no appetite at all to provide public dollars to a $10 billion sports franchise, as much as we all love the Bears," said Sen. Harmon.
And Gov. J.B. Pritzker and leaders in Springfield said they were committed to continuing negotiations with Bears executives on the best way to provide incentives. "These things take time," said House Speaker Emanuel "Chris" Welch, two months after the House approved a "mega-projects" incentive bill that never even got a vote in a Senate committee.
However, if the Bears front office is the fan considering whether to stay or leave the game, then Indiana's Republican Gov. Mike Braun is the spouse sitting in the parking lot, holding a law creating a stadium authority that would use taxpayer dollars to build a stadium for the Bears to rent with an option to buy. For his part, Gov. Braun wasted no time gloating after the team's announcement, issuing a statement saying he looked forward to building a partnership "as strong as the '85 Bears defense."
But there's a lot that can happen before the Bears get into the car with Gov. Braun, and much of it revolves around whether Hoosier taxpayers - and hotel and restaurant patrons in the Region - are ok with being on the hook for billions of dollars in new taxes and fees to help pay for a stadium. And it's notable that the team's statement made clear that a specific site had not been selected, though much of the focus has been on an area near Wolf Lake.
What's likely happening next is that the team and Indiana leaders will start to work out the details of an agreement ... with Gov. Braun and his administration likely to push for a binding deal with penalties if the Bears back out, and McCaskey and Warren possibly trying to hold them off while waiting for a development on the Illinois side of the state line. A spokesperson for Gov. Pritzker said Friday that the Bears' "shifting" position on a stadium location - from Arlington Heights to Chicago to Hammond and back to Arlington Heights - has "hindered" their progress, which may be a cautionary note for Indiana authorities hoping to lock the Bears into a deal.
Arlington Heights mayor Jim Tinaglia, who sounded the alarm about the fate of the failed "mega-project" bill back in January, issued a statement saying the village was disappointed at the team's "change in direction." And Mayor Johnson, who just last month said he questioned the validity of a potential move to Hammond, ducked out a back door after a Friday luncheon at the Chicago Cultural Center in an apparent attempt to avoid reporters waiting to talk to him about the Bears' announcement. A spokesperson issued a statement saying in part that the city will continue to engage in discussions that benefit all residents until "we see shovels in the ground in Hammond."
Ultimately, only Bears executives know whether they're serious about the team playing home games outside of Illinois for the first time since McCaskey's grandfather George Halas founded the Decatur Staleys in 1920, or whether the latest statement is an escalating attempt to use Indiana to leverage a better deal out of Illinois leaders. But internal deadlines aside, the Bears are still under contract to play their home games at Soldier Field until 2033, which theoretically means the team still has a little more time to watch things play out on the field before shuffling toward the car.
