The latest updates have painted a clear picture. The Chicago Bears worked with the Illinois legislature to advance a bill that would provide them with property tax relief, allowing them to begin construction on their new stadium in Arlington Heights. That bill was shot down in the Senate, and a new bill was introduced that focused solely on the Bears. That passed, but when it returned to the House for final evaluation, it wasn’t even voted on before the session expired. As the blame game started shortly after that failure, the Bears announced they were shifting their focus to Hammond, Indiana. People wondered if this was just another leverage play. Adam Schefter recently clarified that.
The NFL insider went on Unsportsmanlike, where he was asked about the Bears’ situation. His expertise is, of course, football-related, so the stadium situation was out of his lane. That is why he got in touch with somebody who understood the situation.
“You know, again, I turn to people because I’m not smart about Illinois politics. How they work. I turn to people that are smarter than me. There was a guy last week that I turned to about this. And I said, like, ‘Is this done? Like, where are we at? How do we gauge this?’ And he texted me back. He said, ‘It’s not a bluff. There’s more work to do, but barring anything very strange, it’s a done deal. Illinois f**ked it up. The politics are unbelievable in that state. Totally dysfunctional.’ That’s the text I got now.”
It doesn’t get much more definitive than that. This all but confirms what has been said over the past week that the Bears going to Hammond is around 80% certain at this point. The failure in May was pretty much the last straw.
Adam Schefter has no skin in the game.
That is why his information is as close to unbiased as you can get in this situation. It is pretty clear that, while the Bears have made plenty of mistakes throughout this process, most of the blame for this fiasco lies with the Illinois government. An appalling mix of complacency, division, greed, and lack of leadership combined to slow the entire process to a crawl. What makes it even crazier is that none of this came from a partisan deadlock. Democrats are in full control of the House, Senate, and the Governor’s office. This should’ve been a simple thing for them.
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Yet there were competing agendas even inside the party. Governor J.B. Pritzker refused to enter serious negotiations with the Bears for literal years, believing it wasn’t worth his time. Not until the team started threatening to move to Indiana did he finally get involved. A large voting bloc in Chicago, led by Mayor Brandon Johnson, has worked hard to block any legislation that allows the Bears to build in Arlington Heights. Part of that is working to settle the remaining Soldier Field debt, and the other part is not wanting to lose revenue from commuter traffic on game days. This is just some of the dysfunction Adam Schefter mentioned.
A panic is starting to set in down in Springfield.
Multiple members of both parties are working feverishly to introduce new legislation that can get the necessary votes to pass, which would give the Bears what they need. Pritzker, despite trying to lay blame on the team, stated publicly that he would have no problem calling a special summer session of the legislature. All the Bears have to do is put together a bill that clearly articulates what they want and has a good chance of passing. This came days after House majority leader Chris Welch said no special session was planned.
That is a massive olive branch from Pritzker, who has played hard ball from the very beginning. One could argue that his decision to maintain that stance lasted too long, costing the state in the battle for public perception. It started out with people seeing them as protecting the taxpayers. However, even after the Bears stated they would fund the entire stadium construction themselves, Illinois kept stalling. Now they may go down as the government that let a franchise that has spent 106 years in the state leave. The mystery source from Adam Schefter was right.
They @#!$% it up.
