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Bear Digest

Winners and Losers from the Chicago Bears Stadium Ordeal

It's apparently over and decided as the Bears annouce they are going to Hammond, Ind., and here are those who come out for the better or worse in this marriage.
Gene Chamberlain|
The Bears will go from Sweet Home Chicago and Lake Shore Drive to Calumet Ave. and a slag heap.
The Bears will go from Sweet Home Chicago and Lake Shore Drive to Calumet Ave. and a slag heap. | Christine Tannous/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

It's time for everyone in Illinois to line up and take responsibility for what just happened.

A team in Illinois since 1920 couldn't stay because the state and city were given every opportunity to work things out in their favor and another state with a plan and the right way of doing things wanted them more.

Losing the Bears to Indiana makes Illinois less attractive and more second-rate than ever.

It didn't have to end this way but in this state things like this occur regularly.

The Bear's announcement about their move to Indiana included some vague language which led some to have hopes everyone could wake up from this nightmare and the team would still be back on its bad turf in Soldier Field, the smallest stadium in the NFL with a terrible traffic problem and insufficient number of bathrooms.

Figure three years and they'll be in Indiana somewhere. This is part of the small ray of hope some in Illinois are clinging to at this time. It didn't necessarily say in George McCaskey's announcement that they'd be moving to the Hammond slag heap site. It just said Hammond. Maybe the Bears have a different Hammond site in mind and there will be a problem haggling over it with Indiana. Don't count on it, though. Indiana doesn't do things that way.

According to Illinoispolicy.org, the most recent figures compiled had Illinois third overall in losing businesses to other states from 2018-23, and since the start of the pandemic are second in losing business.

Morton Salt, Caterpillar, Boeing, Citadel, the list goes on and on. Add the Bears now, although they will continue practicing at Halas Hall in Lake Forest, Ill.

Taxes, regulations and too much political garbage are the main reasons cited by companies for leaving. We've just seen a prime example.

What happens when something like this occurs is the rats all leave the sinking ship. There was plenty of evidence of this at Springfield Monday and in subsequent days.

It's time for those responsible to line up for punishment. Don't give the tired old argument the Bears are responsible because they weren't fully committed by talking behind the scenes to Chicago, either. They were fully committed long enough for something to get done. Those talks weren't even involving Kevin Warren or George McCaskey, just a lawyer who was an underling.

Winners

1. Gov. Mike Braun

The guy now has two football teams in his state after they had none at one point. At least they did this one the right way and in broad daylight, stealing the team fair and square rather than loading up the trucks in the dead of night like the Colts did. They really didn't even steal the Bears. Illinois gave them away.

2. Friends of the Parks

They're always trying to drive everything away from the lakefront. Kudos, there will no longer be hundreds of thousands of fans flocking to the lakefront every year. You should love it when you are alone there with the smelters or at Montrose Beach with the Piping Plovers as they return each year.

3. Chicago drivers

Sunday afternoons, Monday evenings after work, Sunday nights, Thursday nights and even Wednesdays and Tuesdays with the way the NFL is fouling up the scheduling, will now be easier drives with Bears games removed from the lakefront. This would have happened with Arlington Heights, too.

4. Thomas McDermott Jr.

The Hammond mayor scores a huge win and with his victory comes figuring out where exactly to put this thing. It was entirely unclear by the Bears' wording whether they were going to accept the slag heap as a site, only Hammond.

5. Packers fans

Sure, the Bears will be leaving a stadium that Aaron Rodgers owned, but now they can ridicule the Bears for moving to a slag heap. Except, their team has to play on it too. Bears fans for years laughed about Green Bay smelling because of the odor from the toilet paper factories. Now they have their own stench from the slag heap.

6. Fight song writers

They're no longer the "pride and joy of Illinois," as the 1941 fight song "Bear Down Chicago Bears," written by Al Hoffman says.

They need song writers to come up with a new song. Slag down Slag Heap Bears? Either that, or they could just change the lyrics to where it says they're the "pride and joy of Illinois," to "pride and joy from Illinois." It would be a tip of the cap to the stupid state that let the team be stolen.

7. Illinois Republicans

If there were any they could capitalize on this mess. There aren't.

Losers

1. Mayor Brandon Johnson

He has fouled up the city itself even worse than Lori Lightfoot left it, and that's unbelievable. Now he is the most responsible one for the stadium fiasco because of his decision not to support Arlington Heights and to enlist all city political help to deny a stadium for Arlington Park. For weeks, Johnson has essentially been saying, "If I can't have them no one in Illinois can."

Congratulations.

2. Gov. J. B. Pritzker

His original lack of support and then waffling over to the Bears' side as he saw where political opinion was flowing was entirely sickening. He could have put his ample political weight behind them right away and didn't. Then, he posed as someone on their side. Finally, when all was said and done and the legislation defeated, Pritzker stood there and said he wasn't about to give up billions to billionaires just so he came away looking like a winner. The problem with this is our memories aren't that short. Pritzker could have pushed this along for the Bears much earlier and didn't. He's right there below Johnson for blame. What do you expect from a guy who removed toilets from a newly constructed house to avoid taxes.

They don't usually make governors who lose NFL teams into presidents. Maybe he could be the VP for Kamala Harris' next run.

3. Former Mayor Lori Lightfoot


She already lost because it only added to her legacy of failures when she caused the Bears to purchase the Arlington Heights property with her needless and reckless mouth. Then she was voted out of office. Now she can be known for fouling something else up.

It's rather amusing. The mayor of Chicago caused the Bears to look elsewhere and then the new mayor caused them to go somewhere else. Even the Daleys got along better with the Bears than these two mayors.

4. Illinois Tax Payers

The politicians described it as a great win for Illinois tax payers not to pass legislation for a stadium but another business leaves the state. The more jobs and more business the state loses, the less revenue coming in but there is no commensurate decrease in spending.

In fact, they spend more. So they have to raise the taxes more often. It's a vicious cycle and they've just fueled it some more by letting the Bears leave.

5. Bears season ticket holders

There will be whining and complaining by them because it's new, but like McCaskey said during the owners meetings, they'll get used to the idea. They just need a hazmat suit.

6. Arlington Heights

Without that big tax bonus coming in for the Bears being at Arlington Park, maybe they could sell the property to Sterigenics or open a data center.

7. Fireworks and cigarette stores

Those who handle the Hoosier state's biggest exports to Illinois will love the new influx of traffic over the border and can make a fortune setting up shop near the stadium.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.

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