The Chicago Bears stated in August that their agenda remains focused on Hammond, Indiana, for their new stadium. This comes months after they failed to cross the finish line in the Illinois state legislature on a bill to secure the property tax and infrastructure support they need to start building in Arlington Heights. Indiana has been adamant for some time that they are ready and willing to do everything required to bring the Bears to the northwest region. They have two prominent properties on the table.
Despite assurances on all sides that a deal is close, days and weeks continue passing with no viable updates. The Bears insist they’re taking their time, going through all the necessary steps. Others aren’t convinced. They believe the franchise is stalling. If Indiana’s offer were as good as the state makes it out to be, then the Bears would’ve jumped already. This feels more like a leverage play by the organization to wring concessions from Illinois. Finally, a prominent team insider came out and said as much. That was Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune.
The Chicago Bears would rather not go to Indiana.
Presumably the Bears will continue “due diligence” on the two Hammond sites they are considering, Lost Marsh and Wolf Lake Terminal, but it has been pretty apparent from the jump — since Hammond was introduced as an option in December — that Indiana is Plan B.
As I’ve stated multiple times, Hammond is an option for the Bears. It’s not their preferred option, and they’re clearly willing to blow up their self-created timelines in a bid to create traction in Illinois for the Arlington Heights property the team owns. Remember, Warren hinted strongly in March that a decision on the stadium location could come in late spring or early summer.
Fall is here, leaves are about to start turning colors and the Bears are going to require progress in the Illinois legislature during the fall veto session, which includes three dates in November and three in the first week of December.
Everything came into focus once Roger Goodell got involved.
Intervention from the NFL’s commissioner is no small thing. It also served as clear evidence of where the Bears, and by extension the league, were leaning. He met with Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker, not Indiana’s Mike Braun. If that weren’t enough, another major player entered the fray over the past two weeks. That is Bears part-owner Pat Ryan. The 89-year-old has held a large piece of the franchise for decades and is one of the richest men in the state. He also just finished building a new stadium for Northwestern University. By inserting himself into the mix, it’s pretty clear the Bears have lost faith in team president Kevin Warren.
This isn’t overly surprising. It was evident almost from the start that Warren didn’t have a clear plan for getting a deal done. One of the first things he did was get swindled by Mayor Brandon Johnson into proposing a brand new downtown stadium. Not once did he bother to stop and research how much opposition he would face on that path. By the time it registered that such a move was impossible, he’d wasted almost a year of precious time he could’ve devoted to finding allies in Springfield for passing legislation. Warren never found his footing after that, eventually resorting to the threat of Indiana as a desperate gambit.
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The Bears finally have adults in the room.
Asking Warren and George McCaskey to lead the push for a new stadium was always a losing battle. McCaskey has never been known for being a shrewd negotiator, as the previous 16 years of his tenure as team chairman clearly show. It is why he hired Warren in the first place. The problem is that the man’s reputation was somewhat inflated. He took too much credit for helping get U.S. Bank Stadium built in Minnesota. Then he leaned on his time as Big Ten Commissioner to prove he could run an NFL team with professionalism and confidence. Nobody stopped to actually examine his time at that job and how unpopular he was.
Mercifully, he is out of the picture now. Ryan has been negotiating billion-dollar deals for decades. It is what he does. Goodell hasn’t been the second-longest-serving NFL commissioner (20 years) for nothing. The guy handles high-stakes business discussions on the regular. With them leading the charge, it won’t be surprising if the Chicago Bears manage to reach an agreement with Illinois to finally get the stadium construction underway.
