Bears Punt on Chicago, Will Move to Indiana

The Monsters of the Midway say they will be moving across state lines to Hammond, Indiana.

After a long-drawn-out courtship, the Chicago Bears have selected Hammond over sites on the Illinois side of the Chicagoland suburbs such as Arlington Heights.

“Yesterday, the Chicago Bears Board of Directors met and voted to advance our stadium development project in Hammond, Indiana, with the exact site to be selected,” a statement from chairman George McCaskey and CEO Kevin Warren said, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The team’s board of directors voted to focus on Indiana in the wake of a failed final hour Senate bill that would’ve set sites in the Chicago suburbs up with a public-private ownership deal for the new stadium. The Illinois General Assembly’s lower house did not take a vote on the bill, with House lawmakers citing a lack of time to study the fine print of the Senate’s Hail Mary proposal.

The Bears have an offer in hand to build a taxpayer-financed stadium in Hammond near Wolf Lake and Gary, around 20 miles southeast of Chicago. Despite the offer, Bears officials said a stadium in Hammond is not a done deal, according to the outlet. There is no current timeline for how long the Bears will continue to play in historic Soldier Field, nor any concrete plan for office space. The proposed development in Hammond will also include an entertainment area, a popular modern stadium enhancement meant to give the development more consistent foot traffic.

The five-year-long saga appears to be finally closing. The Bears have been pushing for a new stadium site since 2021, and bought the former Arlington International Racecourse property for $200 million in 2023. Working out a deal for property tax relief with the city proved to be too tall a hurdle, whereas Indiana fast-tracked their Hammond deal this year, according to the publication.

While the Bears are honing in on Indiana, a report from ESPN citing an anonymous source claims that Illinois isn’t completely out of the race just yet.

— Hunter Cooke