Just as a long-suffering Chicago was feeling great about its 10-4 Bears and bulk-buying Old Style and eggnog for the most important Bears-Green Bay Packers game in a decade, along comes that grinch Kevin Warren to remind us that the city’s love affair with its NFL franchise is a one-way chimney and the Bears aren’t going to make like Santa Baby and slip a sable under any fan’s tree.
No siree. They want the mink, the yacht and the ring, all for themselves.
In what surely must have been the most ill-timed letter to season ticket holders in the history of ill-timed letters to season ticket holders, the president of the organization kindly informed us all that the team was not just playing Chicago and Arlington Heights against one another, as we have thought all these months, but also now seriously considering an additional wild card, making it a menage a trois.
Northwest Indiana is the lucky newcomer. Maybe a stadium could land right next to the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond. Or in Gary. Let’s not forget about Gary.
The Bears previously said that Arlington Heights was the only location in Cook County that “meets the requirements for a world-class NFL stadium.” Now it adds that maybe such a location also exists in Lake County, Indiana. Who knew?
Indiana officials did their job and used the Bears’ December folly to praise their own pro-business climate and exude excitement, but underneath all those quotes about doing whatever it takes to land the Bears for Indiana, a careful reader could detect a note of cynicism. Even the Hoosiers didn’t fully believe this was genuine; Garyland has been a bridesmaid too many times for that.
Now, Mr. Warren, you have irritated the Illinois governor you are going to need if you want to get anything out of the public purse for Arlington Heights, or if you want to hope for even a modicum of help with that pesky Soldier Field lease.
No doubt Gov. JB Pritzker is thinking twice about drawing up a chair next to a TV Saturday night and cheering with the rest of us. “Suggesting the Bears would move to Indiana is a startling slap in the face to all the beloved and loyal fans who have been rallying around the team during this strong season,” Pritzker spokesman Matt Hill told the Tribune.
State Rep. Kam Buckner (you’ll need him too, Mr. Warren) didn’t want to get left out of the scorn-o-rama. “I don’t disagree with part of the Bears’ assessment,” he tweeted. “It’s true that public dollars for a new stadium has not been a legislative priority. That’s because giving public money to a professional sports franchise doesn’t crack the top 100 things the people of Illinois are asking for, expecting, or willing to tolerate right now.”
He even later added, “Beat Green Bay!,” just to make clear he attached no blame to players or fans. Nice work, Rep. Buckner.
Of all the self-serving blather in Warren’s letter, including the use of the phrase “legislative partnership” to mean “legislative handout,” our biggest laugh came when we got to a statement that would not land any kid on Santa’s nice-and-truthful list: “this is not about leverage.”
Here’s a pro tip from your friendly editorial board, dear reader. Whenever someone insists it is not about leverage, you can be sure it is about leverage.
In this case, logic nixes any other potential explanation. If it were not about leverage, the Bears would negotiate with one potential locale at a time, explore the options, try to make their best deal in the moment and then either strike said likely imperfect deal or stomach the risk that the next deal will be worse, and move on elsewhere. Bears fans have to do this all the time in their actual lives. But not their team. Not an organization that prefers to make public threats. We don’t care if Warren was trying to get ahead of his own story with his letter; the timing is the timing, and it was lousy.
Now, it’s true that New Yorkers cross state lines to watch football, and so the Bears are under no obligation to Illinois. Indeed, Hammond is closer to Soldier Field than Arlington Heights and northwest Indiana is both a legitimate part of our metro area and long where Chicagoans have to gone to place their sports bets. Lake County, Indiana, also could use an economic boost, and there are train lines leading to Hammond and Gary. The Bears are of course a private business and it’s rightly their call where they choose to build their stadium on their dime.
We’ll just reiterate our long-held position. We’re in favor of a reasonable infrastructure package from the public purse, reflecting the economic benefit of a new stadium, just as long as the team does not twist the word “infrastructure” into a backdoor way to get a subsidized stadium and just as long as the Bears honor their commitments to Soldier Field. And they deserve “property tax certainty,” if and when you get that too for your home or commercial building, dear reader.
All that said, this time it feels like Warren and his organization have overplayed their hand by flirting with yet another potential location, this one in a different state. Their targets are reacting like the goalposts have been moved one too many times, and understandably so. Warren should have recognized that the team’s fans want, and deserve, to focus on the big game at hand, not these torturous and frequently disingenuous stadium negotiations.
Take a break for the holidays with all that stadium stuff, man, and come back after you win the Super Bowl.
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