Chicago Bears Football Team Very Close To Leaving The City

Our headline is a slightly suburban rebranding of "da Bears."

From the Chicago Sun-Times, October 4:

 

‘This one is going to happen’: Why move to suburbs makes sense for Bears now, after years of threats

The team has flirted with potential relocation sites across the Chicago area for decades, but the freshly acquired turf at the shuttered Arlington International Racecourse suddenly seems like a realistic destination.  

Three months ago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot cavalierly dismissed the Bears decision to put in a bid to buy the Arlington Heights International Racecourse property as the same old negotiating ploy.

But the agreement the Bears signed last week to purchase the 326-acre racecourse site for $197.2 million makes it abundantly clear that this time, on this site, the McCaskey family is playing for keeps.

“It’s gonna take a while, but this one is going to happen,” said veteran sportswriter Lester Munson. “This is not boy-who-cried-wolf. This is not posturing. This is not negotiation. This is going to be a transaction that will transform the family asset.”

Chicago-based sports marketing expert Marc Ganis has advised numerous NFL teams on their stadium financing. He has closely followed the Bears stadium saga for decades, including former President Michael McCaskey’s past flirtations with sites in Gary, Indiana, Hoffman Estates, Aurora, the Near West Side and the ill-fated McDome project near McCormick Place.

Ganis ticked off a laundry list of factors that make this time different.

Paving the way

There are now multiple examples of NFL teams that have bankrolled new stadiums either completely on their own or with only a “modest” public contribution: SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles ($5.5 billion); Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas ($1.9 billion); New York’s MetLife Stadium ($1.7 billion) and AT&T Stadium in Dallas ($1.85 billion).

“The Bears are able to follow in the footsteps of those teams in what to build, how to build it, how to finance it, how to market it. They will also walk in their footsteps on the NFL’s contributions and participation. The NFL’s financing program for new stadiums was $50 million to $100 million. It’s now $350 million,” Ganis said.

“And the financing market against the revenue streams the Bears would apply to get a loan to build a stadium are now well known, well documented and accepted by the marketplace. What might have been $150 million or $200 million before is now $600 million. The Rams alone — not counting the Chargers [who also play at SoFi] — have sold over $600 million in seat licenses. You get more and you pay more.”

When Michael McCaskey was attempting to play the suburbs against the city 25 years ago, the family-owned business that is the Bears franchise was valued at hundreds of millions of dollars. Today, the Bears are worth well over $4 billion.....

....MUCH MORE