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Pipe dream. While it makes financial sense, it would be too far from and alienate a large portion of their fan base.
The fact that Hammond is closer to Soldier Field than Arlington is irrelevant. The important geography issue is: which site is closer to season-ticket holders and agreeable to fans?
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That’s why Arlington Heights will be the final destination.
+1
This is silly discourse. There are enough people in the Greater Chicago region that finding people to pay to fill 60k seats in Hammond would be a trivial pursuit, and the most dedicated existing Bears season ticket holders won’t care anyway.
The actual issue is whether Indiana can “afford the Bears”.
Robert, we’ve defunded public education and infrastructure before for flimsier reasons than “we can totally embarrass Illinois and the city of Chicago by giving their football team billions of our taxpayer dollars to locate here.”
Appears a good negotiation leverage for the Bears w Illinois…it’ll be interesting to watch things unfold.
Exactly. They did the same thing in the 90’s when they were fighting with the City & State to get a new stadium built in Soldiers Field. It went as far as a feasibility study being done on locations in NW Indiana. But in the end, they got what they wanted in Illinois. Same will happen again.
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Braun is such a complete tool.
Keep dreaming
The Bears own the land in Arlington Heights and its value is directly tied to the Bears new stadium being built there, with the expectation others will also build near the new stadium to take advantage of the economic boom. Many professional sports stadiums are an anchor to other financial investments in the real estate surrounding the stadium (the area around Lambeau field is a great example). Also, using the distance from Soldier Field compared to Arlington Heights as justification for a NW Indiana location completely ignores the demographics of the season ticket holders. I would have to believe a majority of the season ticket holders of the Bears are located either in the northern or western suburbs of Chicago, making a commute to NW Indiana for a game much further or more inconvenient using public transportation. The are not enough residents in NW Indiana to replace the season ticket holders the Bears will lose if they make the move to NW Indiana.
NFL teams got through playing games during COVID without ticket revenue just fine. If the state of Indiana is willing to make a terrible financial decsion and give the Bears billions of dollars in infrastructure improvements and property tax abatements, the Bears are going to take it. It’s not the problem of the Bears that the majority of jobs this will bring are seasonal and low-paying and stadiums don’t lead to economic development worthy of the money they’re given.
This is all about intra-state competition at this point and the state of Indiana is suffering from enough “little brother” envy to make a bad decision.
It’s a negotiation technique until it’s not. Ask Missouri about that.