Bears Float Indiana Move as Stadium Funding Talks Stall

The NFL’s Chicago Bears are now running the triple option in their drive to score taxpayer financing for a new stadium.

The football team is reviving a familiar threat: leave Illinois if taxpayers won’t help pay for a new stadium. This time, the team is dangling northwest Indiana as a potential landing spot, openly pitting state and local governments against each other in a bid to extract its ideal public funding package.

In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Bears President and CEO Kevin Warren confirmed the team is looking across state lines as frustration grows over stalled legislation tied to a proposed stadium at Arlington Park in Arlington Heights, a northwest suburb of Chicago. “We’re looking at opportunities that may exist in the Chicagoland area including northwest Indiana,” Warren said, while stressing that “Arlington Park is the most viable location in Cook County.”

Indiana lawmakers have already laid groundwork. Earlier this year, the state created the Northwest Indiana Professional Sports Development Commission to lure a major franchise.

Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. didn’t hide his enthusiasm: “I would bend over backwards to do anything I can to help the Bears come here,” he told the newspaper, even suggesting the city would “knock down buildings” to make room for an NFL stadium.

Illinois officials weren’t amused. Gov. JB Pritzker’s office called the Indiana consideration “a startling slap in the face” of fans who have supported the team through a so-far successful season. The governor’s spokesperson Matt Hill added that while the Bears are a private business, “the bottom line for any private business development should not come at the full expense of taxpayers.”

The team’s original plan for an enclosed stadium at Arlington Heights involved a $2 billion-plus private commitment. This was followed by a brief pivot, with officials proposing a $4.7 billion new domed stadium on the lakefront to replace its current home venue, Soldier Field. After state leaders took a pass on funding for the lakefront proposal, Warren confirmed the team’s primary focus had returned to the Arlington Heights site.

At the heart of the standoff is legislation the Bears want to revive that would allow “megaprojects” to negotiate long-term property tax payments directly with local taxing bodies. Chicago-area lawmakers have balked, particularly as the team eyes a suburban move and continues to pay just $7 million a year in rent for Soldier Field, which still carries more than $500 million in publicly financed renovation debt.

The Bears insist the legislation would cost the state nothing, but Pritzker has made clear the team — valued at nearly $9 billion — should fund its own stadium, with the state potentially helping on infrastructure. Arlington Heights alone would require an estimated $855 million in road and utility work, should it get the team.

From a negotiating standpoint, the Indiana gambit is textbook. NFL teams have long used relocation threats to juice public subsidies, and Warren denied it’s a ploy. Still, the risks are real. A move out of Illinois could dent local political goodwill, alienate fans and complicate media narratives — even if the team argues that northwest Indiana remains part of its “home marketing area” for TV and radio rights.

Polls already show Chicago-area residents want the Bears to stay inside Cook County, just not on their dime. Crossing state lines might unlock more taxpayer cash, but it could come at the cost of civic loyalty and long-term brand equity — a tradeoff that doesn’t show up neatly in a stadium financing spreadsheet.

— Sam Lounsberry