Everybody loves a good mystery. Well, there is definitely one going on in Arlington Heights. News broke a couple of days ago that the Chicago Bears were placing a bid on the 326-acre land covered by Arlington Racecourse International. If they win it, this would open the door wide for the team to potentially move to the suburb and build a new stadium. Something they’ve flirted with going back several years.
However, since the announcement by team president Ted Phillips, the organization has remained silent on the matter. Or have they? The Daily Herald, who originally broke the story of the Bears’ rising interest in Arlington Park, brought up more news. This of the more unusual variety. It appears an anonymous source is conducting a phone survey of local residents in the surrounding suburb. The goal being to gauge interest in the Bears moving out there.
An automated phone survey to gauge attitudes toward the Chicago Bears’ possibly moving to Arlington Park is circulating in the suburbs, although several community leaders don’t know where it came from…
..Hayes said he heard about the anonymous survey from a village trustee, whose wife received it.
“It’s certainly not coming from the village, and I’d be interested to know who’s doing it,” Hayes said. “It could be anybody. Who knows?”
Who would have the motivation to hold such a survey and keep it so quiet?
The obvious answer would be the Bears themselves. While it is no guarantee they’ll win the bid, it would make sense for them to continue gathering information about the possibility. A big part that is always overlooked in such matters is how local residents would feel about a sports team suddenly dropping into their community. While some will argue it could bring in more business and revenue to the area? People may not always see it that way.
Most of the new businesses involved wouldn’t always benefit the community but the organization itself. Then there is the obviously increased traffic the Bears would generate for home games. Not to mention other sports events they could hold in the new stadium over the course of a year. By gathering this information, the organization would have a good idea of what kind of support (or resistance) they’d see were they to move.
Subscribe to the BFR Youtube channel and ride shotgun with Dave and Ficky as they break down Bears football like nobody else.
Chicago Bears feel like they may be serious this time
There are a few reasons to believe why this is the case. For one, they’re in a position of much greater strength than years ago. They have loads of financial power behind the franchise that would make such a move more feasible. Then there is the looming question of ownership. Rumors persist that some of the younger generations in the McCaskey family wish to sell the team. Something George McCaskey may not be able to prevent once his mother Virginia passes.
By moving to Arlington Park and hopefully getting a new stadium, it would drastically increase the overall value of the franchise. That would maximize the potential profit of a sale. The problem is such things take time. The sheer logistics are staggering, especially from the Chicago Bears’ perspective. If they win the bid, they’d first have to start the process of getting out of their lease with Soldier Field. That runs through 2033.
Then comes the even more difficult part.
Finding backers to help pay for the new stadium. The Bears are a wealthy franchise but they don’t have nearly the revenue required to pay for such a project alone. They would need multiple private investors to make this work. There is no way the state of Illinois will publicly fund it. This isn’t an impossible venture. Just one that figures to take a long time to coalesce.
