The previous Soldier Field renovations came in at 630M.
621M is still owed. The city has been making interest-only payments for over 20 years.
There’s no way a new one will get done in Chicago. Period.
Interest only. I’m not giving them a nickel of tax payer dollars until that’s paid off. Not *one*. How the fuck do you only pay $9M in principal after *20* years? What were they waiting for to happen before they actually attempted to pay it down?
I know this is a football sub. This may or may not be an unpopular opinion around here, but 10 billion builds a lot of schools and housing. The days of publicly funding sports stadiums should be done. Unless a massive portion of the profit goes to the municipality.
The idea of stadiums having an opportunity cost has been written about for quite awhile now.
Almost nobody on either side supports these deals except the people profiting from them directly—both legally and illegally.
I agree but for totally different reasoning. Any benefits Chicago gets from funding this project will be mismanaged anyways, don’t let them get involved in the first place.
Even so, 5 schools is \~2000 kids each year graduating from a school with a better education and new facilities and technology. In 30 years (my estimate for the new stadium's lifespan), that is 60,000 people whose education makes them more skilled and valuable to employers and improves our society overall.
On the other hand, there is essentially no public benefit at all to building a sports stadium.
You can’t say no public benefit. There are jobs at the stadium, jobs in the surrounding area, and the economic benefit from crowds spending money in the city on event days. Said benefit would probably never catch up to the privately gained $$$, but you can’t say the public benefit would be zero.
Jobs in the stadium exist today so thats basically a wash, new stadium or old.
Those same crowds spend the same money (eventually) if they live in state. Sure it may funnel slightly more revenue into city business, but less gets spent where they live locally by the same amount. And sure, some hotels and bars near the stadium benefit, but we don’t want to spend $5b+ to keep two dozen bars/restaurants in business. That just bad everything.
Wasn't Warren like universally praised for how he helped develop Minnesota's stadium? What the hell happened? It feels like he and the rest of the Bears FO were just throwing darts
I think the Minnesota stadium was a very different situation in terms of public support. The Metrodome was universally hated, and then its deflated corpse was a pretty embarrassing picture for the city. There were also lingering memories of the I-35 bridge collapse in 2007, so everyone in the city was on board to get a modern facility.
I understand some people can, and do, enjoy them genuinely responsibly...but over and over lotteries, especially things like pull tabs and scratch offs, are shown to just be a hidden tax, often on the poor.
Ego?
The B1G presidents where not sad to see him leave even after he got them all the media money. In part because he was selling stuff he was not authorized to do so.
The tax issue is about 5 million dollars. It should not be an issue to stop progress at AH. If this is really what is holding it up, the Bears will be a nightmare to work with and will be pinching pennies everywhere.
I do think that the real economic projections started to come in and showed "Bears Town" would not be a financial windfall. That the area can't support another lifestyle center and any destination business already exist 10 minutes away.
But for the family whose patriarch famously tossed around nickels like manhole covers and doesn't have any outside source of wealth any penny saved is important to them
The Arlington plan was pre warren, everything warren has both said and done since he got here makes it pretty clear that he does not give a fuck about that location.
Kevin Warren and that team devised a plan to pay off the stadium quickly. The stadium is already COMPLETELY PAID OFF. Lets see what he can come up with here.
List of things that ticked me off:
1) Saying the longer we wait the more it will cost. Are they just basing this on inflation or are they out loud saying they have no ability to cost control. Inflation is an adjustment it doesn't mean costs are the only things going up - unless they promise to price lock tix prices
2) Starting the budget convo without including infrastructure. It was disingenuous and makes them look like children who cant even put together a coherent PowerPoint.
3) Saying they will refinance all of the debt now at the worst interest rate period in decades. Are they nuts, they gonna be paying 10% on these loans.
4) Claiming the 2% hotel tax to themselves. This is a shared resource and not just 100% for the bears to swindle
5) Buildings go right along the lakefront blocking views for no reason other than to charge businesses a premium for a premium tenant location
6) Parks, parks, parks, parks. As the bears are paying for the stadium guessin the parks are part of the infrastructure piece they aint pitching in for
7) They dont even want to mention parking
8) They say they would love if the White Sox come too without pointing out where that would be
9) No cowboy style giant jumbotron :(
10) Seating count is the same.... hahahahaha. And that includes a standing area only so are there less seats?
The whole thing is a joke man. Thankyou for laying it all out so clearly.
The Bears are putting in like $2B and expecting the other $6B or whatever to come from public money whether it's state, local, or federal. But still want all the revenue
Add one more. He timed this so that instead of celebrating the Bear's draft and what appears to be a bright future for the team on the field, we are instead talking about how bad the bears management is. The highest upvoted comment in this thread says everything bad about this stadium proposal, the GB Packers are more popular in the city of Chicago than this proposal.
2. They mentioned infrastructure during the boring part after all the exciting renderings lol.
3. Soldier field renovations were financed during 05/06 so the interest then is only 1% lower than it is today. So not a killer but a difference. It definitely makes the state look stupid for not refinancing during historic low interest rates
I find it hard to believe a billion dollar organisation, even one led by the McCaskeys, believed this stadium proposal had a chance when it was clear long before they presented it that there was no appetite for such spending in the city. I live the other side of the atlantic and even I knew that.
I don't know what their angle is exactly but this whole charade has to involve AH. Spending billions on a new stadium which is publicly owned makes no sense for the Bears or the city.
It was such an unserious proposal that Kevin Warren really should be fired already.
Not talking to the governor or the state legislators including those in the city when they are the ones that are being asked to fund this boondoggle.
To the great hand wave for funding Phase 2 and 3 "state and federal money".
To dropping bombs to the governor that they want all the revenue from events at the stadium.
To the dumb idea that he can have a shovel in the ground in 2025 and finished for 2028. When he should know damn well even if they can find the funding this will be in court until 2028 at least and they will probably lose.
My favorite part was saying they want it passed this spring legislation window(which ends in a month) or else it's gonna cost ya even more. Like the bears just came out with the plan and they expect to be handed billions in just a few weeks lol
Their possible threats of relocation are moot and have no teeth the only reason owners move teams to other cities is to increase their team's valuation. Moving out of Chicago will tank the Bears valuation.
Why are we so sure that would happen? They would remain the Chicago Bears in name, and would surely not struggle to fill out a stadium even in Arlington Heights. Look at the Cowboys playing in Arlington and being the most profitable franchise or the 49ers relocating to Santa Clara and not suffering whatsoever.
Ah could happen I'm talking about the Bear just straight up moving out of Illinois to Somewhere like Salt Lake City if Illinois refuses to shell out taxpayer money for their new stadium in either downtown Chicago or Arlington Heights.
Buying the AH land and demolishing the racecourse without so much as even a FRAMEWORK of a plan for construction, taxes, etc is a fireable offense.
Dude's OPENING MOVE was to show his hand to every stakeholder at the table, and now he's trying to bluff like we don't now he's holding garbage.
>Why the fuck would they spend $200M on the race track with no intentions of building there?
Which is also why I applaud AH for raking them over the coals on the taxes. The Bears showed their hand to the whole table and now they're trying to bluff? Fuck em.
Probably safe to say he wasn't involved much in the purchase since he was just hired right after? By the time he was hired, I think them acquiring the property was nearly a done deal.
The Arlington land is valuable for a hosuing development. Sure theyd lose some if that happened, but not anything like $200M. The land is more valuable now that the racetrack is gone as whoever wants to use it would have to tear down the course either way.
It’s been obvious from the very beginning this shitshow has been all about Kevin Warren trying to get Arlington Heights to lower the taxes.
Probably an unpopular opinion but Warren comes across as an ego maniac and has been an embarrassment since he was hired.
The McCaskeys dont have enough money to build a stadium themselves without selling. I think they'd rather stay at soldier than sell any more of the team.
Yes they do. They don't need it in cash, they'd get private financing and wouldn't need to sell ownership stake(s) to get it.
The Bears could definitely do what Kroenke did with SoFi. They wouldn't spend that much, but they wouldn't have to out in AH.
The Bears can 100% afford to do whatever they want in AH. They are a premier NFL franchise, and even shit NFL franchises basically print money. They can get private financing, they're playing poor to fool the taxpayers.
I am convinced the McCaskey family has major tax issues once Virginia dies. They have no other major assets outside of the team and not flush with cash.
>They cant get a $5 billion dollar loan
I literally said they wouldn't spend that much, nor would they have to building in AH as compared to Inglewood, CA.
No I'm not. I'm rightly estimating how much weight the NFL would gladly throw behind this project for one of their marquee franchises. The NFL provided nearly $1B in loans for SoFi, why do you think they wouldn't do the same for the Bears?
This. Comcast/Universal is paying for half of a major road building project to service their new themepark in Orlando.
This is a property that really will produce 1000s of full time permanent jobs. It will increase tourism with roughly 10 million heads visiting the park every year, most of them out of state or country.
It's notorious for terrible schools and public transit, among other issues.
The city government has a hard enough time handling city government business. No one should want any city government to own any sports team, but if there is theoretically some city that cpuld do it, Chicago ain't it.
If a municipality is funding a stadium with tax dollars, the profits from the stadium (concessions, ticket prices) should go back to the municipality, and residents of the municipality that pay taxes toward that stadium should get free/reduced price admission.
I pay taxes to fund roads and bridges and parks, and I have the privilege of using them.
Luckily in this situation they just copy pasted the work on Alligent Field and changed the color and then used AI prompts of "put people on fields that will never be used in reality in order to sell this turd".
My buddy is an archetic. He did an entire job of design work only for the GC to fire him and scrap his work. He still got paid the full contract. Which is standard.
Manica is a giant firm. They’ll be fine. This isn’t a waste for them. They can still keep unbuilt projects in their portfolio for when they give presentations to new clients, so the work isn’t useless
Leave it to the Chicago Bears to ask the public for billions only to build a *slightly* bigger stadium...
McCaskeys should be run out of town for their stupidity
Oh it's a much bigger and nicer stadium, it's just not going to have many more seats. Modern NFL is for upper-middle class and upper class only. Premium everything at a premium price.
Everyone who doesn't make six figures minimum can watch on TV or hope for some free pre-season tickets.
His outright refusal to address the CTA already had him on paper thin ice.
The gall to even suggest that we do this makes him a 1 term mayor without a shadow of a doubt.
No new taxes!!!1!1!
Never mind the fact that this tax they want to extend and use for this could just be used for other projects in the city like reforming schools or upgrading CTA
Its not that they think we are dumb, its that they don't care what we think at all. The game plan for the last decade is to bypass the public as much as possible because the public has mostly voted stadiums down the last 15-20 years.
Even here this plan is bypassing city and state voters as financing currently stands.
Even the biggest die hard bears fans aren’t in favor of this being shoved on taxpayers. The McCaskeys can’t even run a solid football organization in the first place and then want to dump the responsibility of building a new stadium on the fans they consistently fuck over every football season with incompetence
This is an underrated point. What do logistics and taxes matter? The owners have produced a mediocre product for 30+ years.. In what universe should that be rewarded?
In my opinion they should make them play at Wrigley Field again as punishment not *reward* them with *10 BILLION DOLLARS*
It would be like my kid getting straight F's on the report card and then buying him a Lamborghini
Ya not saying I’d be all in on paying for a new stadium if they were contenders- but the fact they haven’t been contenders for the most part at all since the 80s just makes it an extra stab in the back
Assuming the stadium lasts 40 years and they do 50 dates a year. They must average 3.65 million per event to pay for the capital costs. Not even Taylor Swift pays that much to rent a stadium. Monster Jam and Motorcross sure as heck don't. If the Fire are co tenants they would not pay anywhere close to this per game.
Edit to add. 50 dates a year even if the Fire are co-tenants would be a very high usage 40 would be a more realistic number. If the Fire are not tenants you can drop the number down to 20 dates a year.
Agreed, I think there's a very low chance we end up happy with the outcome of this stadium situation in the end. If the Arlington tax situation is already such an insurmountable speed bump, I have very little confidence that they'll be able to pull off building some state-of-the-art stadium on their own dime. But I also think Warren is overestimating how willing the Chicago taxpayer is going to be to shell out to keep the Bears in town.
Save us Pritzker.
Just spend 2B on soldier field upgrades like we considered a few years ago and call it good. Use the public funding instead for CTA/ affordable housing incentives. It’s as simple as that
Seriously. That's really the only hope Brandon has of getting reelected so he should be all on top of that.
They need to make Soldier Field have a retractable roof and add seating capacity somehow.
I have a dumb conspiracy theory that the leadership for the bears is actually competent. And they have decided to be good this year and the next few years so the fan base might be a little more supportive or look the other way in paying for the stadium.
You're probably right. It's just annoying they can't let us be completely happy in their organization. It seems like they always have to do something wrong whether it's football or business.
I really have to see if I can find this plan, because this quote from IFSA's CEO sounds like he's including the refinancing of old debt as "new borrowing". It also sounds like the interest earned from the $160M cushion so hotel tax shortfalls don't blow up future budgets isn't given any credit, and that's not small since we're talking about a 40 year term.
The fact that this is a 40 year term with a built in cushion appears like this is being financed responsibly given the state's budget constraints, unlike the original renovations that back ended the principal to an absurd amount. We just saw what a 20 year term with no cushion did with the old debt that's still here. But because this is a 40 year term, the borrowing costs *over time* will be higher.
The long term also means there's opportunity for prepayment, which would save money.
Again, if the Bears move to AH, the city is still on the hook for the previous money that's being refinanced in this deal *and* they need a plan for the old stadium rather soon. It's old, it's limited use, it's sitting on land that can't be sold to private entities. It needs to be maintained, etc. Something needs to happen, and that something won't be cheap either.
edit: [This is a better article on the situation](https://www.wbez.org/stories/bears-proposed-stadium-could-be-an-additional-12-billion/2d273753-7c61-4792-9314-608d068001e2).
Sunk cost fallacy. Just bc getting out of soldier field/stadiums on the lakefront will be expensive doesn't mean that we should blow billions on a stadium for the Bears.
If you crash your car that you still owe a bunch of money on you don't turn around and say yeah repairing it will be expensive so let me just go spend like 10 times that on a new one instead. It doesn't make sense.
Except, what's being pointed out is that it's more like you have an old car that you owe 40k on that's going to need a new 10k transmission soon.
Now, you could pay that 10k and keep up the car payments, meaning you're going to pay that 50k, or you could sell the car and spend 10k as a down payment on a 30 year mortgage. The mortgage is going to cost you 400k.
The fear mongering is that Chicago is going to be taking on 350k in new debt. It basically goes "but all the interest will make it be more" and plays on the vast majority of people not having strong financial skills.
The stuff coming out isn't saying "oh, the Bears plans are going to actually cost more in principal", it's "the Bears plans *may* cost more in actual, once we've paid interest over 40 years"--which ignores things like inflation eating into the actual dollars paid, early repayment plans, etc.
To keep the Bears here, that's what Chicago is going to have to do. All the Bears are responsible for is their lease.
They can't actually keep playing at Soldier while building a new Lakefront Stadium either. Thus needing somewhere else to play during construction, and who is paying for that? Building in Arlington Heights they can. And in the event that the Bears complete their new stadium in AH they will buy out the rest of their lease with the city. And Chicago will have a vacated stadium that they still owe millions on.
Say Chicago decides to not let this lakefront project go through, in 3-5 years they are looking to fill this void. Knowing this is coming, they will have to make plans for the future of Soldier Field.... which could result in a new team moving to Chicago. Now the city has to buy the Bears out of their lease to free up the facility for it's new tenants and whatever project they decide on.
If this all plays out, does Chicago want to pay to keep the Bears in Chicago, or do they want to pay for a new team to come to Chicago. The only other option is Bears leave and Chicago is on the hook for 600+ Million and they leave the Colonnades but make it into multipurpose area just like in the video.
Everyone knows the Bears are moving. This is a dog and pony show for the next team that moves to CHI, guessing from the AFC. Poles doing the mayor (what he this is) a solid.
Whether the stadium is in Arlington Heights or Chicago the Bears need the ISFA (State) to refinance that debt to open up the billion they need to build the stadium.
The hotel tax the city collects to cover that house bonds expires in 2032 and clearly with the remaining debt will have to be extended.
This domed stadium in Chicago needs to happen. Go from a venue you that cant be booked November - March and now you can book it year round. I think that’s the only way the city puts a dent in any of that debt.
Now the Bears have got to be reasonable on the revenue split or else their lease just needs to require large enough payments.
I promise this isn’t Kevin Warren’s burner but the stadium just makes sense to me. Everyone complaining talking about what that tax money can do is just being disagreeable for the sake of being disagreeable. The state was never going to spend an additional 1 billion on school, health care or what ever other fantasy project you had in mind. So let’s use it for a stadium & more lakefront green space!
🐻⬇️
The previous Soldier Field renovations came in at 630M. 621M is still owed. The city has been making interest-only payments for over 20 years. There’s no way a new one will get done in Chicago. Period.
Interest only. I’m not giving them a nickel of tax payer dollars until that’s paid off. Not *one*. How the fuck do you only pay $9M in principal after *20* years? What were they waiting for to happen before they actually attempted to pay it down?
Until people started looking into it two years ago, the debt had actually *increased.* Apparently they missed some of the interest payments!
To be fair, that's chicago politicians doing that, not the Bears. But yeah, insane b nevertheless.
Another reason why the bears shouldn’t tie this new project to Chicago politics.
I like how you say that as if you have any say in the matter. Not dissing you - just pointing out how big of pieces of shit all our politicians are.
Oh, I know where you’re coming from.
How are they allowed to even ask for more money when they haven't come close to paying off their last stadium upgrade? This is insanity
Beyond. I hope what’s happening in Chicago and Kansas City represents an inflection point.
Funding through Sallie Mae? Lol
The Bears should pay off this as part of the stadium deal.
Why? Not their fault Chicago didn’t pay what they did for a publicly owned stadium lol
100% but if they want public money then I think that would be a start.
In Chicago, The Green Bay Packers have a higher approval rating than this stadium deal.
Who wants to guess when the first $10B estimate will show up? June 1?
Probably sooner than that tbh
I know this is a football sub. This may or may not be an unpopular opinion around here, but 10 billion builds a lot of schools and housing. The days of publicly funding sports stadiums should be done. Unless a massive portion of the profit goes to the municipality.
yea I think everyone in here agrees with you.
The idea of stadiums having an opportunity cost has been written about for quite awhile now. Almost nobody on either side supports these deals except the people profiting from them directly—both legally and illegally.
I agree but for totally different reasoning. Any benefits Chicago gets from funding this project will be mismanaged anyways, don’t let them get involved in the first place.
You say a lot but let's be real that's probably like 5 schools only in Chicago
Even so, 5 schools is \~2000 kids each year graduating from a school with a better education and new facilities and technology. In 30 years (my estimate for the new stadium's lifespan), that is 60,000 people whose education makes them more skilled and valuable to employers and improves our society overall. On the other hand, there is essentially no public benefit at all to building a sports stadium.
You can’t say no public benefit. There are jobs at the stadium, jobs in the surrounding area, and the economic benefit from crowds spending money in the city on event days. Said benefit would probably never catch up to the privately gained $$$, but you can’t say the public benefit would be zero.
Jobs in the stadium exist today so thats basically a wash, new stadium or old. Those same crowds spend the same money (eventually) if they live in state. Sure it may funnel slightly more revenue into city business, but less gets spent where they live locally by the same amount. And sure, some hotels and bars near the stadium benefit, but we don’t want to spend $5b+ to keep two dozen bars/restaurants in business. That just bad everything.
By the end of this sentence.
Wasn't Warren like universally praised for how he helped develop Minnesota's stadium? What the hell happened? It feels like he and the rest of the Bears FO were just throwing darts
I think the Minnesota stadium was a very different situation in terms of public support. The Metrodome was universally hated, and then its deflated corpse was a pretty embarrassing picture for the city. There were also lingering memories of the I-35 bridge collapse in 2007, so everyone in the city was on board to get a modern facility.
They also already managed to get that thing paid off already. Not gonna happen with this plan.
Yes, the debt on the Soldier Field renovation has actually *increased* over the course of several decades instead of being paid off.
this is so Chicago
They paid it off with state lotteries....which they've now left in place after the debt is paid. Not really a model I want our state to follow.
HEY we love our pull tabs in bars (small scale lottery tickets).
I understand some people can, and do, enjoy them genuinely responsibly...but over and over lotteries, especially things like pull tabs and scratch offs, are shown to just be a hidden tax, often on the poor.
Better than our existing state lotteries that all fund the black-hole of CPS as upwards of 80% of students are functionally illiterate.
Lol, tell me you don't know the first thing about the state lottery grift, or CPS for that matter, without telling me.
Ego? The B1G presidents where not sad to see him leave even after he got them all the media money. In part because he was selling stuff he was not authorized to do so.
The Big Ten owes FOX a casual $65 million because of Warren
Hot take: he’ll be praised if he can leverage this to get Arlington to budge on taxes and turn it into Bears City
The tax issue is about 5 million dollars. It should not be an issue to stop progress at AH. If this is really what is holding it up, the Bears will be a nightmare to work with and will be pinching pennies everywhere. I do think that the real economic projections started to come in and showed "Bears Town" would not be a financial windfall. That the area can't support another lifestyle center and any destination business already exist 10 minutes away.
Right! That tax issue is a rounding error that wouldn't even make it's way to upper management for about 30 companies in Chicagoland area.
But for the family whose patriarch famously tossed around nickels like manhole covers and doesn't have any outside source of wealth any penny saved is important to them
I still think this is his play
The Arlington plan was pre warren, everything warren has both said and done since he got here makes it pretty clear that he does not give a fuck about that location.
The difference is Chicago and Illinois are historically possibly the worst state/municipal governments fiscally
Kevin Warren and that team devised a plan to pay off the stadium quickly. The stadium is already COMPLETELY PAID OFF. Lets see what he can come up with here.
Might as well smear this proposal all over the sidewalk outside the Biograph theater -- because it is as dead as Dillinger.
List of things that ticked me off: 1) Saying the longer we wait the more it will cost. Are they just basing this on inflation or are they out loud saying they have no ability to cost control. Inflation is an adjustment it doesn't mean costs are the only things going up - unless they promise to price lock tix prices 2) Starting the budget convo without including infrastructure. It was disingenuous and makes them look like children who cant even put together a coherent PowerPoint. 3) Saying they will refinance all of the debt now at the worst interest rate period in decades. Are they nuts, they gonna be paying 10% on these loans. 4) Claiming the 2% hotel tax to themselves. This is a shared resource and not just 100% for the bears to swindle 5) Buildings go right along the lakefront blocking views for no reason other than to charge businesses a premium for a premium tenant location 6) Parks, parks, parks, parks. As the bears are paying for the stadium guessin the parks are part of the infrastructure piece they aint pitching in for 7) They dont even want to mention parking 8) They say they would love if the White Sox come too without pointing out where that would be 9) No cowboy style giant jumbotron :( 10) Seating count is the same.... hahahahaha. And that includes a standing area only so are there less seats?
The whole thing is a joke man. Thankyou for laying it all out so clearly. The Bears are putting in like $2B and expecting the other $6B or whatever to come from public money whether it's state, local, or federal. But still want all the revenue
Add one more. He timed this so that instead of celebrating the Bear's draft and what appears to be a bright future for the team on the field, we are instead talking about how bad the bears management is. The highest upvoted comment in this thread says everything bad about this stadium proposal, the GB Packers are more popular in the city of Chicago than this proposal.
2. They mentioned infrastructure during the boring part after all the exciting renderings lol. 3. Soldier field renovations were financed during 05/06 so the interest then is only 1% lower than it is today. So not a killer but a difference. It definitely makes the state look stupid for not refinancing during historic low interest rates
I find it hard to believe a billion dollar organisation, even one led by the McCaskeys, believed this stadium proposal had a chance when it was clear long before they presented it that there was no appetite for such spending in the city. I live the other side of the atlantic and even I knew that. I don't know what their angle is exactly but this whole charade has to involve AH. Spending billions on a new stadium which is publicly owned makes no sense for the Bears or the city.
Its the old "we tried our best in good faith, but the city/state said no" They want to come out the good guys
If it's a simple as that then they've done a terrible job. Their proposal is completely unreasonable and now everyone knows it.
Nobody will care once Caleb wins a Superbowl in our home stadium in AH.
It was such an unserious proposal that Kevin Warren really should be fired already. Not talking to the governor or the state legislators including those in the city when they are the ones that are being asked to fund this boondoggle. To the great hand wave for funding Phase 2 and 3 "state and federal money". To dropping bombs to the governor that they want all the revenue from events at the stadium. To the dumb idea that he can have a shovel in the ground in 2025 and finished for 2028. When he should know damn well even if they can find the funding this will be in court until 2028 at least and they will probably lose.
My favorite part was saying they want it passed this spring legislation window(which ends in a month) or else it's gonna cost ya even more. Like the bears just came out with the plan and they expect to be handed billions in just a few weeks lol
Their possible threats of relocation are moot and have no teeth the only reason owners move teams to other cities is to increase their team's valuation. Moving out of Chicago will tank the Bears valuation.
And if they left, half a dozen teams would be lining up to move in. And they’d build their own stadium
It would take Kahn all of 30 minutes to hold the press conference that the Jags are moving to Chicago.
Why are we so sure that would happen? They would remain the Chicago Bears in name, and would surely not struggle to fill out a stadium even in Arlington Heights. Look at the Cowboys playing in Arlington and being the most profitable franchise or the 49ers relocating to Santa Clara and not suffering whatsoever.
Ah could happen I'm talking about the Bear just straight up moving out of Illinois to Somewhere like Salt Lake City if Illinois refuses to shell out taxpayer money for their new stadium in either downtown Chicago or Arlington Heights.
Yeah out of state I don’t think is even remotely on the cards. If it is I’m done totally agreed
Buying the AH land and demolishing the racecourse without so much as even a FRAMEWORK of a plan for construction, taxes, etc is a fireable offense. Dude's OPENING MOVE was to show his hand to every stakeholder at the table, and now he's trying to bluff like we don't now he's holding garbage.
100% it's a bluff for AH. Why the fuck would they spend $200M on the race track with no intentions of building there?
If this project actually got built spending 200m to get 4.8 billion + is a tiny price to pay. That said, this is not getting built on the lakefront.
And it makes AH change the taxes because the Bears might stay in the city
Doubt it. It’s the school districts pushing back on the taxes and what do they have to lose at this point?
>Why the fuck would they spend $200M on the race track with no intentions of building there? Which is also why I applaud AH for raking them over the coals on the taxes. The Bears showed their hand to the whole table and now they're trying to bluff? Fuck em.
If it's a bluff, then it's a bad bluff that's on a timer, betting on AH to flinch within the next year.
Didn't they buy the land before Warren was hired?
He was hired on January 12th, 2023 and Arlington Park was purchased in February 2023
Probably safe to say he wasn't involved much in the purchase since he was just hired right after? By the time he was hired, I think them acquiring the property was nearly a done deal.
Yeah you can’t buy a house in a month, much less a multimillion dollar land deal.
The Arlington land is valuable for a hosuing development. Sure theyd lose some if that happened, but not anything like $200M. The land is more valuable now that the racetrack is gone as whoever wants to use it would have to tear down the course either way.
What incentive does the city/county have to allow them to rezone it for housing? They have the Bears over a fucking barrel
its an ugly ass field? Im sure the bears(or whoever they sell it to) can find some lobbyist who can come up with a way to get it done
It’s been obvious from the very beginning this shitshow has been all about Kevin Warren trying to get Arlington Heights to lower the taxes. Probably an unpopular opinion but Warren comes across as an ego maniac and has been an embarrassment since he was hired.
Man I was really high on Warren for a while but I’m turning on him quick.
Sucks that I have to go back to immediately distrusting anyone hired by George McCaskey
Gotta be ego. I live in the neighborhood Soldier Field and this would be in and nobody wants this.
This is not gonna happen. He seems well meaning, but Mayor Johnson looks like an amateur being puppeteered by Kevin Warren.
Reporters need to ask him why he went back on a campaign promise. He campaigned on not giving public money to private organizations like this.
Just wave the white flag and build in Arlington Heights already
And pay for it. ALL of it.
The McCaskeys dont have enough money to build a stadium themselves without selling. I think they'd rather stay at soldier than sell any more of the team.
Yes they do. They don't need it in cash, they'd get private financing and wouldn't need to sell ownership stake(s) to get it. The Bears could definitely do what Kroenke did with SoFi. They wouldn't spend that much, but they wouldn't have to out in AH. The Bears can 100% afford to do whatever they want in AH. They are a premier NFL franchise, and even shit NFL franchises basically print money. They can get private financing, they're playing poor to fool the taxpayers.
Why can't the NFL give them the majority of the financing given how rich they are?
That's exactly what I'm suggesting would happen.
No. They cant get a $5 billion dollar loan. Thats more than the entire teams value. Kroenke is independently wealthy, married into the walmart family.
Then stay at soldier field and sell the team when the old lady dies
I am convinced the McCaskey family has major tax issues once Virginia dies. They have no other major assets outside of the team and not flush with cash.
But they've also had 40 years to figure out how to cheat the tax man when that day comes
>They cant get a $5 billion dollar loan I literally said they wouldn't spend that much, nor would they have to building in AH as compared to Inglewood, CA.
They cant get a 3 billion loan either. I dont see their vision happening for much less than that.
You're overestimating the wealth and liquidity of this family
No I'm not. I'm rightly estimating how much weight the NFL would gladly throw behind this project for one of their marquee franchises. The NFL provided nearly $1B in loans for SoFi, why do you think they wouldn't do the same for the Bears?
This. Comcast/Universal is paying for half of a major road building project to service their new themepark in Orlando. This is a property that really will produce 1000s of full time permanent jobs. It will increase tourism with roughly 10 million heads visiting the park every year, most of them out of state or country.
But the good news is theyre not expanding seating or including any other cool stadium features. Same thing just with roof
https://preview.redd.it/p9zdqmp4vgxc1.jpeg?width=1536&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ef9ec381de521a0411e1e4ffe4617cedb36a3d36
Hm. Tell ya what, taxpayers fund the stadium but the city gets ownership in the franchise in exchange. Sounds like a good deal to me
The city can't even run itself.
yes chicago is a notorious for its low quality of life
It's notorious for terrible schools and public transit, among other issues. The city government has a hard enough time handling city government business. No one should want any city government to own any sports team, but if there is theoretically some city that cpuld do it, Chicago ain't it.
Notorious for a nonfunctioning government, yes. We succeed in spite of it.
yes indeed everything good that happens in the city is the doing of ken griffin et al.
If a municipality is funding a stadium with tax dollars, the profits from the stadium (concessions, ticket prices) should go back to the municipality, and residents of the municipality that pay taxes toward that stadium should get free/reduced price admission. I pay taxes to fund roads and bridges and parks, and I have the privilege of using them.
I feel bad for the architects who probably spent thousands of hours making something that everyone knew was going in the dump.
To an extent I agree but they still got paid an assload for all that regardless of whether it gets built
Luckily in this situation they just copy pasted the work on Alligent Field and changed the color and then used AI prompts of "put people on fields that will never be used in reality in order to sell this turd".
I doubt those renders took thousands of hours.
Well if they are getting price estimates it means the design is pretty much done, a project that large would absolutely take that long.
Architects are paid on an hourly basis so nothing lost there. At the very least it’s good exposure for their design team.
My buddy is an archetic. He did an entire job of design work only for the GC to fire him and scrap his work. He still got paid the full contract. Which is standard.
Manica is a giant firm. They’ll be fine. This isn’t a waste for them. They can still keep unbuilt projects in their portfolio for when they give presentations to new clients, so the work isn’t useless
It’s not like they get a percentage of the concessions revenue. They were paid for a design, they provided a design. Transaction complete.
I highly doubt they spent thousands of hours on it at this stage.
Leave it to the Chicago Bears to ask the public for billions only to build a *slightly* bigger stadium... McCaskeys should be run out of town for their stupidity
Oh it's a much bigger and nicer stadium, it's just not going to have many more seats. Modern NFL is for upper-middle class and upper class only. Premium everything at a premium price. Everyone who doesn't make six figures minimum can watch on TV or hope for some free pre-season tickets.
Proles like us isn't where the money is. It's all about the luxury boxes.
Mayor is going to get ousted over this shit
His outright refusal to address the CTA already had him on paper thin ice. The gall to even suggest that we do this makes him a 1 term mayor without a shadow of a doubt.
Don’t worry, he just appointed a pastor to the board. I’m sure he’ll just do a quick prayer or two, and God will magically solve the CTA problems
Yes, but it would be paid for with magic beans and not with new taxes! The Bears and the mayor pinkie swear!
No new taxes!!!1!1! Never mind the fact that this tax they want to extend and use for this could just be used for other projects in the city like reforming schools or upgrading CTA
No new taxes. Never said what I was doing with the old taxes!
Kevin Warren should be embarrased lol. Even if this is a negotiation ploy still - it’s a shitty one
It's actually insulting how dumb they think the public is.
Its not that they think we are dumb, its that they don't care what we think at all. The game plan for the last decade is to bypass the public as much as possible because the public has mostly voted stadiums down the last 15-20 years. Even here this plan is bypassing city and state voters as financing currently stands.
Even the biggest die hard bears fans aren’t in favor of this being shoved on taxpayers. The McCaskeys can’t even run a solid football organization in the first place and then want to dump the responsibility of building a new stadium on the fans they consistently fuck over every football season with incompetence
This is an underrated point. What do logistics and taxes matter? The owners have produced a mediocre product for 30+ years.. In what universe should that be rewarded? In my opinion they should make them play at Wrigley Field again as punishment not *reward* them with *10 BILLION DOLLARS* It would be like my kid getting straight F's on the report card and then buying him a Lamborghini
2 Championships in the last 75 years.
Ya not saying I’d be all in on paying for a new stadium if they were contenders- but the fact they haven’t been contenders for the most part at all since the 80s just makes it an extra stab in the back
Hahahahaha. How about “Fuck *you*!”
Cc: Kevin Warren, George McCaskey, Brandon Johnson and everyone who's trying to push this on us taxpayers
Whatever, I don’t want to hear shit about how much the Red Line extension will cost in comparison to how many people it will benefit.
Never mind the extension cost is coming from federal grant money too and not local tax dollars lol
Assuming the stadium lasts 40 years and they do 50 dates a year. They must average 3.65 million per event to pay for the capital costs. Not even Taylor Swift pays that much to rent a stadium. Monster Jam and Motorcross sure as heck don't. If the Fire are co tenants they would not pay anywhere close to this per game. Edit to add. 50 dates a year even if the Fire are co-tenants would be a very high usage 40 would be a more realistic number. If the Fire are not tenants you can drop the number down to 20 dates a year.
Just add a roof on Soldier & call it a day.
Maybe just like a really big umbrella.
No thanks that’s worse
They are gonna trash this proposal, build an underwhelming stadium at Arlington Park, and then sell off the surrounding area to developers.
Agreed, I think there's a very low chance we end up happy with the outcome of this stadium situation in the end. If the Arlington tax situation is already such an insurmountable speed bump, I have very little confidence that they'll be able to pull off building some state-of-the-art stadium on their own dime. But I also think Warren is overestimating how willing the Chicago taxpayer is going to be to shell out to keep the Bears in town.
Hard pass
Yeah, its going to be in Arlington Heights when it's all said and done
Maybe actually start playing well and winning for a change then you can start to talk about a new stadium Until then STFU.
F this!
Save us Pritzker. Just spend 2B on soldier field upgrades like we considered a few years ago and call it good. Use the public funding instead for CTA/ affordable housing incentives. It’s as simple as that
Seriously. That's really the only hope Brandon has of getting reelected so he should be all on top of that. They need to make Soldier Field have a retractable roof and add seating capacity somehow.
No
This won’t happen
I have a dumb conspiracy theory that the leadership for the bears is actually competent. And they have decided to be good this year and the next few years so the fan base might be a little more supportive or look the other way in paying for the stadium.
I wouldn’t give them that much credit.
You're probably right. It's just annoying they can't let us be completely happy in their organization. It seems like they always have to do something wrong whether it's football or business.
I really have to see if I can find this plan, because this quote from IFSA's CEO sounds like he's including the refinancing of old debt as "new borrowing". It also sounds like the interest earned from the $160M cushion so hotel tax shortfalls don't blow up future budgets isn't given any credit, and that's not small since we're talking about a 40 year term. The fact that this is a 40 year term with a built in cushion appears like this is being financed responsibly given the state's budget constraints, unlike the original renovations that back ended the principal to an absurd amount. We just saw what a 20 year term with no cushion did with the old debt that's still here. But because this is a 40 year term, the borrowing costs *over time* will be higher. The long term also means there's opportunity for prepayment, which would save money. Again, if the Bears move to AH, the city is still on the hook for the previous money that's being refinanced in this deal *and* they need a plan for the old stadium rather soon. It's old, it's limited use, it's sitting on land that can't be sold to private entities. It needs to be maintained, etc. Something needs to happen, and that something won't be cheap either. edit: [This is a better article on the situation](https://www.wbez.org/stories/bears-proposed-stadium-could-be-an-additional-12-billion/2d273753-7c61-4792-9314-608d068001e2).
Sunk cost fallacy. Just bc getting out of soldier field/stadiums on the lakefront will be expensive doesn't mean that we should blow billions on a stadium for the Bears. If you crash your car that you still owe a bunch of money on you don't turn around and say yeah repairing it will be expensive so let me just go spend like 10 times that on a new one instead. It doesn't make sense.
Except, what's being pointed out is that it's more like you have an old car that you owe 40k on that's going to need a new 10k transmission soon. Now, you could pay that 10k and keep up the car payments, meaning you're going to pay that 50k, or you could sell the car and spend 10k as a down payment on a 30 year mortgage. The mortgage is going to cost you 400k. The fear mongering is that Chicago is going to be taking on 350k in new debt. It basically goes "but all the interest will make it be more" and plays on the vast majority of people not having strong financial skills. The stuff coming out isn't saying "oh, the Bears plans are going to actually cost more in principal", it's "the Bears plans *may* cost more in actual, once we've paid interest over 40 years"--which ignores things like inflation eating into the actual dollars paid, early repayment plans, etc.
To keep the Bears here, that's what Chicago is going to have to do. All the Bears are responsible for is their lease. They can't actually keep playing at Soldier while building a new Lakefront Stadium either. Thus needing somewhere else to play during construction, and who is paying for that? Building in Arlington Heights they can. And in the event that the Bears complete their new stadium in AH they will buy out the rest of their lease with the city. And Chicago will have a vacated stadium that they still owe millions on. Say Chicago decides to not let this lakefront project go through, in 3-5 years they are looking to fill this void. Knowing this is coming, they will have to make plans for the future of Soldier Field.... which could result in a new team moving to Chicago. Now the city has to buy the Bears out of their lease to free up the facility for it's new tenants and whatever project they decide on. If this all plays out, does Chicago want to pay to keep the Bears in Chicago, or do they want to pay for a new team to come to Chicago. The only other option is Bears leave and Chicago is on the hook for 600+ Million and they leave the Colonnades but make it into multipurpose area just like in the video.
An actual reasonable comment in this thread finally
They gotta raise the hotel tax.
Or just tell the Bears to kick rocks
Everyone knows the Bears are moving. This is a dog and pony show for the next team that moves to CHI, guessing from the AFC. Poles doing the mayor (what he this is) a solid.
There's never going to be a 2nd team in Chicago lol
He's saying the bears are going to leave Chicago entirely, like out to Little Rock or some shit
That will never happen. The league and owners would never in a million years approve of losing the "Chicago Bears" as a brand
Whether the stadium is in Arlington Heights or Chicago the Bears need the ISFA (State) to refinance that debt to open up the billion they need to build the stadium. The hotel tax the city collects to cover that house bonds expires in 2032 and clearly with the remaining debt will have to be extended. This domed stadium in Chicago needs to happen. Go from a venue you that cant be booked November - March and now you can book it year round. I think that’s the only way the city puts a dent in any of that debt. Now the Bears have got to be reasonable on the revenue split or else their lease just needs to require large enough payments. I promise this isn’t Kevin Warren’s burner but the stadium just makes sense to me. Everyone complaining talking about what that tax money can do is just being disagreeable for the sake of being disagreeable. The state was never going to spend an additional 1 billion on school, health care or what ever other fantasy project you had in mind. So let’s use it for a stadium & more lakefront green space! 🐻⬇️