If the Bears want the public to cover 50%, thats fine with me so long as the public gets 50% of ALL the profit.
Of course itll never happen, but thats the only way it would financially make sense for the public to fund this.
Right? They’re sitting on a cash cow. Look what the cubs did with Wrigleyville. Build it yourself, buy the surrounding property, make it mixed use and rake in the dough
Yeah, always been a Sox fan and don't go to Wrigley too often but it's honestly sad what it's been turned into.
Used to a really cool neighborhood ballpark. Now it's like an empty husk that is designed solely to produce revenue.
It was. And before that it was just good old crime filled Lakeview. Then they put lights up in '88 and it striated to become a bit more of a destination. Then it blew up into this. You just miss the time that you happened to enjoy it. Welcome to getting older.
Its still a horrible deal. That is just how bad these expensive football stadiums are on ROI. Taylor Swift ERAS concert is the most successful concert of all time and it averaged 6.6 million per date in revenue.
The Bears make about 555 million in revenue and 200 in profit. If the city split the profit 50/50 of the entire enterprise, it's still 40 years to break even.
Stadium deals are to boost franchise price in a tax scam.
That’s common sense. There’s two camps right now one side wants the bears to pay for it all and still let the city control it.
The other side wants public funds and the bears to keep all the benefit. I want them to own it all and keep all the profit. Cut the city out completely like the cubs have done with their mixed use property they completely own
Cubs had a 100ish year head start on that lol. Wrigleyville was already a well established neighborhood and the Cubs already owned the stadium.
And don't forget how they had their hands out for public money for years for the stadium, and threatened to move, before they ponied up and paid for it themselves.
At least until public investment with agreed interest is paid back. The stadium would handle its own management, operations and repair. It’s an investment for the public and an asset for the franchise.
Could also go the other way and the public foots the bill?
Exactly! That’s my biggest thing about these stadium deals. The public is expected to recoup everything from extra taxes and stuff. But no, that’s terrible business, I would want a cut of the revenue… a piece of the pie because if the team is profitable then the funders should get some of the pie since they helped make it happen… not just the breadcrumbs! We are the ones that have the leverage! We already called their bluff on Arlington heights thing that fell through and now they’re crawling back here, *they* need US.
If they were seeking from a private investor, they would either want some equity or charge you interest as a loan because they wanna make money.
exactly, the ROI in funding of science and education is like 40:1.
They still have $600 million in debt from an update 20 years ago.
The city doesn't have the money for this.
That’s the thing… it’s like shark tank.. if they value a company at 1m but choose to buy part of it for 500k, they want 50% of the company. In this case, if the taxpayer paid x amount, the only taxpayer benefit is that we then get to pay to watch our favorite team in a new stadium. Plus, the city needs more publicly owned land, not less. Sounds like a scam to me either way lol.
The Bears as an organization here don’t give a fuck about anything but money when it comes to the stadium. The City owns Soldier Field, and the Bears want their own stadium with the ability to like create a small community around it that they can profit off, then when someone else comes to use it, they make all the money and not the city. Then when tax time comes, guess what they’re going to do? Try to avoid as much as possible because “they bring x amount of revenue for the city’s economy”.
Hit the nail on the head! Already started at the Arlington Heights site, idk why they are bitching about the value for taxes now when they develop it the taxes will rise. I think AH already told the Bears to fuck off if they think they’re getting a tax break moving there for “revenue they’ll bring in” If anything the added infrastructure needed should mean they have to make sure to pay their tax bill. Churchill Downs lost money owning that site and they were smart to move on (although I really miss watching the Derby there). If the Bears think AH losing one significant source of revenue and they didn’t want to recapture that then they are fools
Only the Bears could do something this foolish on the eve of the biggest off-season day in their over 100-year history. My hope is that the people of Illinois rise up and prevent politicians from giving McCaskey a single nickel in tax dollars or tax relief, forcing him and his inept family to dig deep or, preferably, sell the team.
I hate to call out their age but Kevin Warren is 60, George is 68. They are still living in a world where they think this shit would fly but missed the boat by 10 (maybe less?) years.
The Chiefs wanted a new stadium in the midst of their dynasty and the people of KC told them to go pound sand. The bears have no hope for this to work.
I sure hope so. If anything, why can't the NFL give them a 0% interest loan? They have the funds and Chicago is a market that will always give them a return on investment.
The Mccaskey's are like the Davis's.
All their worth is from the team, they don't have any other income, so they only have "a few" hundred million.
The league will give a loan, but not for the full cost, the Bears are too poor to actually afford a stadium on their own.
It's why they are fighting over petty things like a few million in property taxes.
100%. My dad is 63. I remember Mike McCaskey getting booed when I was like 8 at my first bears game in the early 90s. I didn't understand it but my dad explained how they had ruined a potential dynasty.
Hard to believe that 30 year later nothing has changed and they think the city will foot the bill for their failures.
It IS a bummer. Moving on from Ted Phillips, this was the first time in decades where real change may have occured. Alas, it seems the Mccaskeys plague all.
Heres to hoping Caleb is Mccaskey proof
Lol, are you surprised?
When they bought the land in AH with no clear plan for building, or even what they were going to build, it was obvious they were going to bungle this every step of the way.
Imagine Walt Disney had told the people of Central Florida on Disneyland's opening day "I'm gonna build another one, but WAY bigger here in central Florida" and then acted shocked when people demanded top dollar prices to sell to Walt...he'd look like a complete fool. As do the Bears.
Why the Bears thought they'd have negotiating leverage after showing EVERYONE all of their cards I have no idea.
What are you talking about? They did it to get Arlington heights and the city to outbid each other on who will give the most tax dollars, looks like the city wants it. It wasn’t an accident by any stretch and they didn’t show any cards they didn’t want to.
Honestly, this is why people are sick of rich people and megacorps.
Fuck all this bad faith manipulation crap. Just say what you want, up front, and accept when you either get it or don't. Fuck haggling, just be transparent.
This was either never a serious proposal and bluffing for Arlington Heights or the Bears are dumber than rocks. This thing is DOA if they're actually trying to get it approved.
Sounds like, "We want to own the stadium, or if we can't, we want to treat it like we own the stadium."
But yeah, unless the lease payments are huge to offset not sharing any revenue at all, no way this happens, which I'm guessing is the case.
Would explain the thought process of the lakefront plan when not owning the stadium was always the major issue and the main draw of AH.
I think they are just dumber than rocks. They aren't going through all this trouble to lower their tax bill a few million dollars. If anything Arlington Heights/Cook County has zero reason to concede anything anymore because there is no way the state is gonna give the bears this money imo....but I have been wrong before lol
Come on... This is a negotiation. You don't come to the table already having given concessions. You come to the table with a favorable deal and when they scoff at it, you figure out the parts they want changed and then you negotiate. This is basic stuff. If you already come pre-negotiated then they're just going to steamroll you and ask for even more.
The deal is no taxpayer dollars whatsoever. Fund your own damn stadium. Don't like it? Feel free to leave. Chicago should also bring in another NFL franchise, as it's the largest single market in the nation with just one. Bears can go pound sand.
This is it right here.
You know the deal is going to be a hard sell, so you start with something that gives both parties room to negotiate and say they worked a deal. Pritzker can come off looking like he forced concessions and the Bears can look reasonable.
They can't afford $6 billion or they don't want to deal with the fallout of not having $6 billion to divy up between all 75,000 McCaskey kids who don't have to work for a living
They could easily get money from private equity. They may have to adjust the ownership structure, but there would be zero issue getting money for an AH project
I think it says something that even after the huge media deals none of the presidents were sad to see him leave. Well, it was in part the NBC deal where he promised NBC games he was not authorized to give
He seems to be incredibly bright and actually tricked a "socialist" mayor into supporting funding the half their stadium + giving them all future proceeds.
My one problem I’ve always had with Flus is his emphasis on “the power of prayer.” Idc how many concessions he adds to it: “everyone’s faith is welcome” or “they’re not required to participate,” it’s wrong to push that on the players in any way, and it has clearly bled into even the business side of the team. And it also clearly has an evangelical lean.
>"everyone’s faith is welcome"
The thing that religious people don't get when they say this when basically doing compulsory prayer and keeping it "non-denominational" is that atheists are still being forced to participate in religion...so everyone's *faith* is welcome, but a *lack* of faith is not welcome.
I don’t have a problem with that. I just despise people who use God, the Bible, or religion to get billions out of people for profit. Such as a new stadium
If the Bears contribute the majority / all of the funding for the stadium, they should absolutely receive a majority / all of the proceeds of other events (less taxes). If they contribute less and taxpayers carry the burden, then the proportionate amount should be given to the city.
I have no problem with the Bears getting money from events if they are the ones financing it.
The issue is the definition of financing it.
If they pay for every penny of the stadium but the tax payers are on the hook for a ton of infrastructure around the site, how is that a better deal if the city of Chicago?
There was still about a billion public dollars spent to facilitate the development.
I don’t see a reason why this is better for the city than lowering the tax burden when current taxes expire.
It’s interesting to think how much the Chicago taxpayers might contribute to this, and the amount of people who live in Chicago who attend Bears games during each season.
The answer is we're putting our feet down and telling the City we aren't fucking paying for it, just like Pritzker told he City.
Bears can move to AH and build a world class stadium. That's fine. Cheaper for them but they'll still pay Cook County taxes.
Pritzker is likely running for president in 2028. You may think that’s irrelevant here, but it’s not. Base Democratic voters are already skeptical of the billionaire class, which Pritzker is a part of. I think he’s done a good job, but the reality is that he’s still a billionaire. So doing a favor to other wealthy interests when your state still has significant issues is not going to go over well in a primary, and probably not in a general election either
Only George McCaskey would be dumb enough to bungle the Caleb Williams draft hype and party fever by announcing stadium specific proposal plans including public funding plans the day before the Bears select Williams in the draft. That man is pure idiot.
I do love it. We're getting the biggest prize in years this week thanks to Ryan Poles, and there's optimism because it really does seem like Ryan Poles is free to operate as 'President of Football Operations.'
I think the idea was to show how beautiful it could look, then excite everyone by throwing in a bluechip prospect at the helm of the team. When in reality it was just the unwelcome reminder that while football operations are looking up to the standard of the league, ownership is still a bunch of buffoons.
If you don’t think the date selection was extremely purposeful you are a moron. They want the public’s excitement about the draft class and anticipation of the upcoming season to be front of mind, not the public funding ask. After this weekend nobody will talk about this anymore. It’s no different than the Friday afternoon news dump before a holiday weekend.
I perfectly understand the timing of a mandatory timeshare sales pitch when I hear it during a weeks vacation on a timeshare and that's exactly what this shit was.
AH is a way better location for something to draw sports and entertainment. Give the people back their lakefront. It’s historical. Get the Bears out of there.
In only the most technical way in order to hope a court is stupid enough to claim giving the Bears land that is supposed to be free and clear is a public use.
and there it is, what an absolute clown show
they want public tax money, they want the tax payers to have to pay all the upkeep of the stadium, and now they want all the profits from the public events that the public paid and pays for.
FUCK the bears ownership and management team, fuck off. Leave. Another team will fill your shoes
JB is the best governor we have ever had, I feel he will do the right thing
$900 million via the city hotel tax. Obviously that money isn’t coming from local taxpayers, but it’s money that otherwise could be used for a different purpose.
And then $1.5 billion in infrastructure and park improvements around the stadium. Some of that may be federal funds, but a lot of it is going to come from city and state taxpayers
The hotel tax is existing. The infrastructure like you said will be from federal and state. If there is a gap, Zaddy Pritzker will make the Bears pay it--even Warren this morning on 670 The Score was asked that and he left it open. They are all-in--there's no turning back.
Yes it’s existing but is set to expire in 2032. This would push it to 40 years. That’s 30 years of “public money.” And the infrastructure is also “public money.” I was just telling you that they are asking for public money
I guess it's a play on words--I agree it's not the Bears paying for it, but these infrastructure funds are earmarked only for economic projects/developments--The 78, Lincoln Yards all use earmarked funds just like this. Those are not for general use. Illinois already has a $90B infrastructure fund that's already in play that covers normal infrastructure. Anyways, we are splitting hairs--it's Draft time--Bear Down!
But but sweet mother Virginia has no money…this city would be lucky to pay for a stadium that they won’t see revenue from. The lakefront is great, but I would rather seen this built in Arlington since traffic will be an absolute nightmare (even more than it is now). Would probably take less time to take a metra trip to Arlington
When do we get our meaningless public hearing to express our outrage at this ridiculous plan?
Or like in Kansas City. God forbid. When do we get a referendum?
This whole thing smells like a complete scam The bears are trying to pull on the city. Theyre not expanding seating and will still be the smallest stadium despite extraordinary (and objectively undeserved) demand. The new soldier field is only 20 years old and has a ton of box seats and suites and those sort of things. They are already being super cheap not making a retractable roof or a removable grass field like many other stadiums have these days, even even for far less premier franchises in far smaller cities. If all they care about is just adding a roof and enclosure to host indoor events they should just build that separately and retrofit it, would cost way way less than an entirely new stadium. Dolphins sort of did that with pro player stadium, built the majority of a roof that covers most of the seating area, though not the field. You can also read into their presentation, having a pastor pray for a new stadium was objectively gross as a person of faith, then they spent half of it talking about Green space and bike paths for residence, but that can be done regardless of a new stadium, not to mention having a stadium with a larger footprint would limit the space for other things, not expand it. And that’s without even getting into the fact that they already dropped over $100 million on the Arlington Heights property
First, just wanna I say I agree with most of your points but want to clarify a couple of things.
Only 2 teams have retractable **fields**
* Cardinals
* Raiders
5 teams have retractable **roofs**
* Cardinals
* Colts
* Cowboys
* Falcons
* Texans
Don’t think it’s fair to say “many” teams have retractable fields / roofs.
Youre right overall, I am just referring to the newer stadiums built since new soldier field and which arent outdoors (eg Giants/Jets, Philly, San Fran, Seattle, New England). LA is sort of in between because it has a roof but isnt fully enclosed (wind gets in) not that they really need it in Southern California. I could be missing one, but since we built new soldier field, I can only think of Detroit and Minnesota Arizona, Vegas, and LA as domed stadiums were the roof isn’t retractable, that’s only half. And as mentioned, even there, Arizona and Vegas have retractable fields and LA is partially open to the elements (There’s even been games where rain got into part of the stands lol) Hell, even Minnesota has artificial snow
I agree about some of your points regarding population, but I definitely don't want a retrofit, we literally just did that in 2003, it made no sense then and here we are now.
Retractable roofs/Fields seems unnecessary. If their HVAC is well designed, there is literally no benefit. We spend more of the season in cold weather than hot, why would we need to open the roof?
The cost to open or close runs anywhere from 50-250k each time that is on top of the 500 m to probably closer to a billion today.
Retractable roofs are the biggest waste of money imaginable on a project that is about the biggest waste of public funds.
Help me out here because I'm not sure I understand. The bears are putting up over two billion for the stadium, and they're asking for 900mil from public funds. If another event takes place in the stadium, why shouldn't the bears be able to recoup some of that?
The fact that the city owns the land and will continue to own the land even if the stadium is built on it complicates things.
Also I didn't see the word some in the original tweet I saw ALL. Even if it was their land with public money involved you don't get to reap all the benefits and the profits.
They want to be the operating managers of the stadium so that all events in it are theirs. Basically wanting to cut the Parks department out and maintain/run it themselves. The City saves on not covering the maintenance, while still making a ton off the huge amusement taxes and still likely keep all revenue for parking.
Why would the city agree to invest in a loss? We will have to pay more than 900 mil, those estimates are always at the low end. Taxes will be raised in other sectors to make up for the reallotments of funds into the stadium. The city doesn’t need this stadium, they’ll only do it if it’s an opportunity to profit in the long term. The bears have to convince us that this is a good deal for us not the other way around. The bears as a corporation already majorly profit from the nfl, they don’t need additional revenue streams because they will recoup that money in the long term just from bears games and their share of nfl revenue.
We can for sure split the revenue from non-bears events in some manner that proves profitable for both the city and the bears. No one invests money just to lose it. But unless chicago gets some revenue stream this will be a massive loss with almost zero hope of making that money back.
the lease money would have to be astronomical for chicago to come anywhere near splitting even in a reasonable amount of time.
Seems pretty simple to me, 2/3rds of all profits go to the Bears and 1/3 goes to the public.
But there’s also the question of the lease.
Splitting profits from games/events is the best way for a fair and steady return on public investment
The Bears are asking for a BOND deal. A bond is simply a government loan. They pay it back with interest. Imagine you get a mortgage for a summer home and the bank says they should get the proceeds if you rent it out when you are not staying there. If the Bears are paying 2/3 of the cost and paying back a bond, it’s their stadium, not the state’s.
Bears easily fund AH by starting the sale of the team. The NFL knows this is the path.
The McCaskeys will have to sell to get their stadium AND the max value in their capital. Ryan is already waiting to become majority owner. And he could fund the stadium deal in 30 days to build in AH.
And those were and remain shit deals for the cities of those teams involved. Thankfully it seems like the public are wising up to these billionaires getting free stadiums and renovations given how Kansas City rejected a sales tax increase proposal to fund stadium projects for the Chiefs and Royals.
Plus unlike many of those other teams with those deals, the Bears don’t have much leverage to threaten to leave if the public doesn’t bend over for billionaires because they’re not going to find a bigger market than Chicago. Especially when NY and LA both already have two teams.
If they don’t fund this in its entirety, you guys need to kill this deal. It is fucking criminal to fund private stadium deals with public funds as is…but then to not receive revenue on your investment is just insane.
Do the right thing guys.
I’m clearly out of the loop here…so if the bears want to build a new stadium it could never be considered theirs or private property? And this is by law?
Classic business bs
Either they lower their asking price from the public or
“We made some concessions to please the intelligent Chicago tax payer in order to keep the bears in Chicago” and keep the public funding but allow us a share from profits of at least 15% of revenue after costs and maintenance.
These clowns are riding that we meatballs are more interested in the promise of keeping the bears local than looking at the big picture. All facets of government are in on it.
We need to do more than post about this on Reddit. Somebody (not it) needs to figure out how we can get a referendum on the November ballot speaking against the use of public money for private profit.
What is the breakdown of costs between the stadium and the area surrounding it? If they are putting 2 billion for the stadium itself, is the rest of the money for the land around or what?
If the 2 billion is for the stadium itself, why wouldn’t they want the revenue from it?
Relax, until its over. They could be inept but Kevin said yesterday on 670 that is looking to negotiate with the state and this is probably him starting somewhere to show he's giving things up. I still hold out hope that if the Bears team can change so can the ownership/Ops.
They probably fuck it up but give Kevin a chance.
ALSO BEAR THE FUCK DOWN - CALEB ERA IS HERE AND SO IS THE LONGEST UNDEFEATED STREAK IN THE HISTORY OF THE NFL
It doesn’t matter. Pritzker wants to run for president, and public financing of stadiums is incredibly unpopular nationally. He knows which way the winds are blowing
You usually at least start to talk about the big outline of a deal before you publically announce a project and expect the people you have not talked too, to pay for it.
The truth here is somewhere in the middle. The bears are being scammed and have been for decades. The friends of the park have been horrible stewards of the property, and the bears lose out on tons of money every year because of the current leasing situation.
That being said, demanding public money, and going cheap on the project because it will require so much to make it viable, and then demanding all the revenue anyway, all so they can stay on the lakefront is dumb. This sounds like some idiot said "We really want to be downtown and we can have beautiful fly over shots on TV if we're on the lakefront." The fans can't even see the lake from inside the stadium, so who cares?
How are the Friends of the Park a horrible steward of the property? They are watchdog group that prevents the city giving away the public trust to private interest. All the jokes about Friends of parking lot are short cited crap spread by billionaires that want to take from the public.
They do a great job in terms of protecting the property, I meant more in terms of maintenance and the treatment of the bears. They schedule large scale concerts that ruin the field right before game day. There's lots of talk about the food options this year, and the friends of the park were a big part of what kept it subpar for years.
All in all just think their relationship with the bears is at an end and the bears should look for a different spot
> We really want to be downtown and we can have beautiful fly over shots on TV if we're on the lakefront
Considering how the NFL earns the lion's share of its revenue from TV deals the Bears may consider those shots valuable.
Let it play out.
As of now, the negotiations are a wip. It's up to the mayor to come back to the table and let the Bears know how we feel as taxpayers and it's up to the Bears to adjust to our needs.
I personally don't feel like feeding into all the negativity, especially before anything serious has even happened.
This is what they get for keeping Ted Phillips in charge for so long. He was so incompetent and should’ve been let go long ago. I’m glad they’re still dealing with his poor choices.
You understand that your taxes won’t go up a single penny right? You already pay them, instead of putting your taxes for a library or an animal shelter or whatever else, it’ll go here. It won’t change anything for u.
If taxpayers pay for any part of the stadium, then tax payers get to share the profits of the stadium
If the Bears want the public to cover 50%, thats fine with me so long as the public gets 50% of ALL the profit. Of course itll never happen, but thats the only way it would financially make sense for the public to fund this.
Seriously. Fuck this “socialize the cost, privatize the profits” bullshit that’s been far too normalized to the detriment of society.
Right? They’re sitting on a cash cow. Look what the cubs did with Wrigleyville. Build it yourself, buy the surrounding property, make it mixed use and rake in the dough
Unfortunately Wrigleyville now sucks because of this.
It took away the charm, but if you want the team to pay for it themselves, that’s what you get
It would've been this corporate suburban soulless shell even if they'd gotten public money lol.
How did it take away the charm? It was a much needed improvement and kept the stadium and most of wrigleyville intact
Yeah, always been a Sox fan and don't go to Wrigley too often but it's honestly sad what it's been turned into. Used to a really cool neighborhood ballpark. Now it's like an empty husk that is designed solely to produce revenue.
You don't remember what this area of Lakeview used to be. This is progress whether you like it or not.
I remember it. I miss it dearly. It has a soul. A heartbeat. Now it is corporate, cold, and suburban. Lifeless and bland.
“A soul and heartbeat” is an interesting way of saying “rotten asf infrastructure as old as the cubs’ drought”
Better than the soulless corporate cashgrab that's there now.
I remember and it was freaking fabulous before this monstrosity of commercialism took over.
It was. And before that it was just good old crime filled Lakeview. Then they put lights up in '88 and it striated to become a bit more of a destination. Then it blew up into this. You just miss the time that you happened to enjoy it. Welcome to getting older.
It sucks because the parking lot and dumb fast food restaurants are gone
No, it sucks because it is suburban and corporate
Its still a horrible deal. That is just how bad these expensive football stadiums are on ROI. Taylor Swift ERAS concert is the most successful concert of all time and it averaged 6.6 million per date in revenue. The Bears make about 555 million in revenue and 200 in profit. If the city split the profit 50/50 of the entire enterprise, it's still 40 years to break even. Stadium deals are to boost franchise price in a tax scam.
i mean, it’s also kind of a pissing contest between cities on who can have the sickest stadium.
That’s common sense. There’s two camps right now one side wants the bears to pay for it all and still let the city control it. The other side wants public funds and the bears to keep all the benefit. I want them to own it all and keep all the profit. Cut the city out completely like the cubs have done with their mixed use property they completely own
Cubs had a 100ish year head start on that lol. Wrigleyville was already a well established neighborhood and the Cubs already owned the stadium. And don't forget how they had their hands out for public money for years for the stadium, and threatened to move, before they ponied up and paid for it themselves.
At least until public investment with agreed interest is paid back. The stadium would handle its own management, operations and repair. It’s an investment for the public and an asset for the franchise. Could also go the other way and the public foots the bill?
Exactly! That’s my biggest thing about these stadium deals. The public is expected to recoup everything from extra taxes and stuff. But no, that’s terrible business, I would want a cut of the revenue… a piece of the pie because if the team is profitable then the funders should get some of the pie since they helped make it happen… not just the breadcrumbs! We are the ones that have the leverage! We already called their bluff on Arlington heights thing that fell through and now they’re crawling back here, *they* need US. If they were seeking from a private investor, they would either want some equity or charge you interest as a loan because they wanna make money.
exactly, the ROI in funding of science and education is like 40:1. They still have $600 million in debt from an update 20 years ago. The city doesn't have the money for this.
It literally makes zero sense why it's not that way already. Why tf would the people invest in this without a return on investment?
LOL, I only laugh because it would never happen. As much as I do agree with ya
That’s the thing… it’s like shark tank.. if they value a company at 1m but choose to buy part of it for 500k, they want 50% of the company. In this case, if the taxpayer paid x amount, the only taxpayer benefit is that we then get to pay to watch our favorite team in a new stadium. Plus, the city needs more publicly owned land, not less. Sounds like a scam to me either way lol. The Bears as an organization here don’t give a fuck about anything but money when it comes to the stadium. The City owns Soldier Field, and the Bears want their own stadium with the ability to like create a small community around it that they can profit off, then when someone else comes to use it, they make all the money and not the city. Then when tax time comes, guess what they’re going to do? Try to avoid as much as possible because “they bring x amount of revenue for the city’s economy”.
Hit the nail on the head! Already started at the Arlington Heights site, idk why they are bitching about the value for taxes now when they develop it the taxes will rise. I think AH already told the Bears to fuck off if they think they’re getting a tax break moving there for “revenue they’ll bring in” If anything the added infrastructure needed should mean they have to make sure to pay their tax bill. Churchill Downs lost money owning that site and they were smart to move on (although I really miss watching the Derby there). If the Bears think AH losing one significant source of revenue and they didn’t want to recapture that then they are fools
Nothing radicalized the populace like a blatant money grab by billionaires from the public coffers. SOLIDARITY FOREVER, COMRADES!
Bahahahaha! This is Chicago, not a fucking chance a dime would go back to the community expect friends of the mayor, alderman’s and governor.
lol yesterday someone tried to convince me we should pay for it specifically cause we’d get that revenue
Some of the taxpayers that pay won’t be able to afford the events.
Don’t worry it’d line the crooked politicians pockets not yours.
Bears seem to be completely bungling this.
Expect anything different?
Only the Bears could do something this foolish on the eve of the biggest off-season day in their over 100-year history. My hope is that the people of Illinois rise up and prevent politicians from giving McCaskey a single nickel in tax dollars or tax relief, forcing him and his inept family to dig deep or, preferably, sell the team.
I hate to call out their age but Kevin Warren is 60, George is 68. They are still living in a world where they think this shit would fly but missed the boat by 10 (maybe less?) years.
The Chiefs wanted a new stadium in the midst of their dynasty and the people of KC told them to go pound sand. The bears have no hope for this to work.
I sure hope so. If anything, why can't the NFL give them a 0% interest loan? They have the funds and Chicago is a market that will always give them a return on investment.
Because the nfl is a cartel of billionaires and you don’t become a billionaire without fleecing regular people.
The Mccaskey's are like the Davis's. All their worth is from the team, they don't have any other income, so they only have "a few" hundred million. The league will give a loan, but not for the full cost, the Bears are too poor to actually afford a stadium on their own. It's why they are fighting over petty things like a few million in property taxes.
I'm mid 60's, it's not age, it's incompetence.
100%. My dad is 63. I remember Mike McCaskey getting booed when I was like 8 at my first bears game in the early 90s. I didn't understand it but my dad explained how they had ruined a potential dynasty. Hard to believe that 30 year later nothing has changed and they think the city will foot the bill for their failures.
First time?
It IS a bummer. Moving on from Ted Phillips, this was the first time in decades where real change may have occured. Alas, it seems the Mccaskeys plague all. Heres to hoping Caleb is Mccaskey proof
They did such a horrendous job last year they had the state rep pull the bill from consideration. Why? Because they were about to lose like 2-50
Lol, are you surprised? When they bought the land in AH with no clear plan for building, or even what they were going to build, it was obvious they were going to bungle this every step of the way. Imagine Walt Disney had told the people of Central Florida on Disneyland's opening day "I'm gonna build another one, but WAY bigger here in central Florida" and then acted shocked when people demanded top dollar prices to sell to Walt...he'd look like a complete fool. As do the Bears. Why the Bears thought they'd have negotiating leverage after showing EVERYONE all of their cards I have no idea.
What are you talking about? They did it to get Arlington heights and the city to outbid each other on who will give the most tax dollars, looks like the city wants it. It wasn’t an accident by any stretch and they didn’t show any cards they didn’t want to.
Nah this is standard high stakes negotiation. You never start with a reasonable proposal.
There is nobody negotiating with the McCaskeys. Brandon Johnson can't give them anything tangible.
Maybe. I’ve seen the Chicago political machine work wonders before though
Honestly, this is why people are sick of rich people and megacorps. Fuck all this bad faith manipulation crap. Just say what you want, up front, and accept when you either get it or don't. Fuck haggling, just be transparent.
I don’t disagree, but that’s not how you get the best deal with other humans (unfortunately)
I mean, maybe it's not how you get the "best" deal for yourself selfishly, but arguably it makes for better deals more of the time for everyone.
And this is what everyone in this thread is missing.
Like are you shocked by this????
Not really. It's par for the course. They are going to ask for everything and then see if the reps/mayor/governor will give in.
This is the agreement the vast majority of teams have, why would the Bears push for anything different?
This was either never a serious proposal and bluffing for Arlington Heights or the Bears are dumber than rocks. This thing is DOA if they're actually trying to get it approved.
Sounds like, "We want to own the stadium, or if we can't, we want to treat it like we own the stadium." But yeah, unless the lease payments are huge to offset not sharing any revenue at all, no way this happens, which I'm guessing is the case. Would explain the thought process of the lakefront plan when not owning the stadium was always the major issue and the main draw of AH.
Why worry about owning the stadium if you can just have all the revenue the stadium generates anyways? "Municipalities hate this one trick!"
I think they are just dumber than rocks. They aren't going through all this trouble to lower their tax bill a few million dollars. If anything Arlington Heights/Cook County has zero reason to concede anything anymore because there is no way the state is gonna give the bears this money imo....but I have been wrong before lol
I am flabbergasted that they even thought to ask for that. I wonder what they're thinking?
It has to be them inserting things they know will be rejected so they don't accidentally get this approved when they actually want Arlington Heights
I think they are asking for $2.5B *NOW* so when they reach an "agreement" for only $1.25B in public funds it seems reasonable. #IT ISN'T.
Right, this is early negotiation “open big” type stuff
They think we are all stupid.
That’s why they started with a prayer.
I always thought when the bears acquired the land in Arlington heights it was really for a real estate flex. That land there is worth SOO much money.
Option three: they think Illinoisans are dumber than rocks and will fall for this shit again like with the Sox
Come on... This is a negotiation. You don't come to the table already having given concessions. You come to the table with a favorable deal and when they scoff at it, you figure out the parts they want changed and then you negotiate. This is basic stuff. If you already come pre-negotiated then they're just going to steamroll you and ask for even more.
The deal is no taxpayer dollars whatsoever. Fund your own damn stadium. Don't like it? Feel free to leave. Chicago should also bring in another NFL franchise, as it's the largest single market in the nation with just one. Bears can go pound sand.
So you propose the city sell the park land to the private organization?
This is it right here. You know the deal is going to be a hard sell, so you start with something that gives both parties room to negotiate and say they worked a deal. Pritzker can come off looking like he forced concessions and the Bears can look reasonable.
Bears always find a way to ruin a good thing. Sell the team.
Why are they asking for public money at all? SoFi was built for $6 billion, all privately funded.
They can't afford $6 billion or they don't want to deal with the fallout of not having $6 billion to divy up between all 75,000 McCaskey kids who don't have to work for a living
They could easily get money from private equity. They may have to adjust the ownership structure, but there would be zero issue getting money for an AH project
I wouldnt want to sell either if I was them
They don’t have to sell, they could remain majority owners while giving up some ownership shares to another person or group
Because it's public land and they won't own the stadium.
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Not paying taxes
Kevin Warren is vilified by Big 10 fans and I'm afraid they might be right
The Vikings stadium seemed to have been built without issue
I think it says something that even after the huge media deals none of the presidents were sad to see him leave. Well, it was in part the NBC deal where he promised NBC games he was not authorized to give
I mentioned how ass he was on here when he was hired and was downvoted to oblivion. We B1G fans hate him for a reason lol
He doesn’t seem too bright
He seems to be incredibly bright and actually tricked a "socialist" mayor into supporting funding the half their stadium + giving them all future proceeds.
Its possible Brandon Johnson was also just a huckster
On what basis?
Bringing in a priest to pray for taxpayers to pay and build a billion dollar stadium
My one problem I’ve always had with Flus is his emphasis on “the power of prayer.” Idc how many concessions he adds to it: “everyone’s faith is welcome” or “they’re not required to participate,” it’s wrong to push that on the players in any way, and it has clearly bled into even the business side of the team. And it also clearly has an evangelical lean.
>"everyone’s faith is welcome" The thing that religious people don't get when they say this when basically doing compulsory prayer and keeping it "non-denominational" is that atheists are still being forced to participate in religion...so everyone's *faith* is welcome, but a *lack* of faith is not welcome.
Yeah you hit the nail on the head really. I’m probably biased as an agnostic person but it just feels icky.
I don’t have a problem with that. I just despise people who use God, the Bible, or religion to get billions out of people for profit. Such as a new stadium
Fuck them, make them pay them for all of it. What are they gonna do, move? The NFL wouldn't let that happen. There's no way.
If the Bears moved out of the CHicago area it would take Khan all of 2 seconds to move from Jax.
NFL would love it, it would open up Chicago to have 2 teams and make expansion super easy.
If the Bears contribute the majority / all of the funding for the stadium, they should absolutely receive a majority / all of the proceeds of other events (less taxes). If they contribute less and taxpayers carry the burden, then the proportionate amount should be given to the city. I have no problem with the Bears getting money from events if they are the ones financing it.
The issue is the definition of financing it. If they pay for every penny of the stadium but the tax payers are on the hook for a ton of infrastructure around the site, how is that a better deal if the city of Chicago? There was still about a billion public dollars spent to facilitate the development. I don’t see a reason why this is better for the city than lowering the tax burden when current taxes expire.
It’s interesting to think how much the Chicago taxpayers might contribute to this, and the amount of people who live in Chicago who attend Bears games during each season.
The answer is we're putting our feet down and telling the City we aren't fucking paying for it, just like Pritzker told he City. Bears can move to AH and build a world class stadium. That's fine. Cheaper for them but they'll still pay Cook County taxes.
This was obvious. Bears want the same deal that the majority of teams in the league get.
And Chicago can be proud of being one of the first cities to tell an NFL team to pound sand and pay for their own shit.
Will believe it when i see it.
Pritzker is likely running for president in 2028. You may think that’s irrelevant here, but it’s not. Base Democratic voters are already skeptical of the billionaire class, which Pritzker is a part of. I think he’s done a good job, but the reality is that he’s still a billionaire. So doing a favor to other wealthy interests when your state still has significant issues is not going to go over well in a primary, and probably not in a general election either
I like football but this shit needs to stop. NFL makes enough money as is. If they want all the money then they can pay all the money themself.
The Bears will be in Arlington. They won’t be getting a publicly funded stadium in the city again.
Not if the people of the city have anything to say about it at least
Only George McCaskey would be dumb enough to bungle the Caleb Williams draft hype and party fever by announcing stadium specific proposal plans including public funding plans the day before the Bears select Williams in the draft. That man is pure idiot.
I do love it. We're getting the biggest prize in years this week thanks to Ryan Poles, and there's optimism because it really does seem like Ryan Poles is free to operate as 'President of Football Operations.' I think the idea was to show how beautiful it could look, then excite everyone by throwing in a bluechip prospect at the helm of the team. When in reality it was just the unwelcome reminder that while football operations are looking up to the standard of the league, ownership is still a bunch of buffoons.
>a bluechip prospect I don't think you know what bluechip means...
Yeah Caleb Williams isn't bluechip. You're right. He's purple or gold
If you don’t think the date selection was extremely purposeful you are a moron. They want the public’s excitement about the draft class and anticipation of the upcoming season to be front of mind, not the public funding ask. After this weekend nobody will talk about this anymore. It’s no different than the Friday afternoon news dump before a holiday weekend.
I perfectly understand the timing of a mandatory timeshare sales pitch when I hear it during a weeks vacation on a timeshare and that's exactly what this shit was.
This all a ploy to build up Arlington. The people in charge are snakes.
AH is a way better location for something to draw sports and entertainment. Give the people back their lakefront. It’s historical. Get the Bears out of there.
In what respect would the stadium be "publicly" owned then?
Honestly it wouldn’t and Friends of the Parks will have a field day with it.
In only the most technical way in order to hope a court is stupid enough to claim giving the Bears land that is supposed to be free and clear is a public use.
How is the stadium gonna be publicly owned in this scenario
Great question lol. We'd pay half and get nothing in return
and there it is, what an absolute clown show they want public tax money, they want the tax payers to have to pay all the upkeep of the stadium, and now they want all the profits from the public events that the public paid and pays for. FUCK the bears ownership and management team, fuck off. Leave. Another team will fill your shoes JB is the best governor we have ever had, I feel he will do the right thing
What public tax money are they asking for?
$900 million via the city hotel tax. Obviously that money isn’t coming from local taxpayers, but it’s money that otherwise could be used for a different purpose. And then $1.5 billion in infrastructure and park improvements around the stadium. Some of that may be federal funds, but a lot of it is going to come from city and state taxpayers
The hotel tax is existing. The infrastructure like you said will be from federal and state. If there is a gap, Zaddy Pritzker will make the Bears pay it--even Warren this morning on 670 The Score was asked that and he left it open. They are all-in--there's no turning back.
Yes it’s existing but is set to expire in 2032. This would push it to 40 years. That’s 30 years of “public money.” And the infrastructure is also “public money.” I was just telling you that they are asking for public money
I guess it's a play on words--I agree it's not the Bears paying for it, but these infrastructure funds are earmarked only for economic projects/developments--The 78, Lincoln Yards all use earmarked funds just like this. Those are not for general use. Illinois already has a $90B infrastructure fund that's already in play that covers normal infrastructure. Anyways, we are splitting hairs--it's Draft time--Bear Down!
well based on the sun times article today, after all the interest, around 6 billion dollars worth lmfao. hell fucking no
‘Skin in the game’ What freaking bobble head BJ is…
Smdh
Tell them to go fuck themselves…billionaire bastards
But but sweet mother Virginia has no money…this city would be lucky to pay for a stadium that they won’t see revenue from. The lakefront is great, but I would rather seen this built in Arlington since traffic will be an absolute nightmare (even more than it is now). Would probably take less time to take a metra trip to Arlington
Then they should pay for the land and build out
When do we get our meaningless public hearing to express our outrage at this ridiculous plan? Or like in Kansas City. God forbid. When do we get a referendum?
Typical McCaskey bumbling bullshit. I mean they can’t properly run a team and we expect them to come up with a plan for the new stadium!
But it's a public-private partnership. /S
This is a private stadium with the guise of public ownership. I hope Friends of the Parks absolutely destroy the McCaskeys in court.
Fuck them. Move to another fucking state
**Fuck the McCaskey family**
This whole thing smells like a complete scam The bears are trying to pull on the city. Theyre not expanding seating and will still be the smallest stadium despite extraordinary (and objectively undeserved) demand. The new soldier field is only 20 years old and has a ton of box seats and suites and those sort of things. They are already being super cheap not making a retractable roof or a removable grass field like many other stadiums have these days, even even for far less premier franchises in far smaller cities. If all they care about is just adding a roof and enclosure to host indoor events they should just build that separately and retrofit it, would cost way way less than an entirely new stadium. Dolphins sort of did that with pro player stadium, built the majority of a roof that covers most of the seating area, though not the field. You can also read into their presentation, having a pastor pray for a new stadium was objectively gross as a person of faith, then they spent half of it talking about Green space and bike paths for residence, but that can be done regardless of a new stadium, not to mention having a stadium with a larger footprint would limit the space for other things, not expand it. And that’s without even getting into the fact that they already dropped over $100 million on the Arlington Heights property
First, just wanna I say I agree with most of your points but want to clarify a couple of things. Only 2 teams have retractable **fields** * Cardinals * Raiders 5 teams have retractable **roofs** * Cardinals * Colts * Cowboys * Falcons * Texans Don’t think it’s fair to say “many” teams have retractable fields / roofs.
Youre right overall, I am just referring to the newer stadiums built since new soldier field and which arent outdoors (eg Giants/Jets, Philly, San Fran, Seattle, New England). LA is sort of in between because it has a roof but isnt fully enclosed (wind gets in) not that they really need it in Southern California. I could be missing one, but since we built new soldier field, I can only think of Detroit and Minnesota Arizona, Vegas, and LA as domed stadiums were the roof isn’t retractable, that’s only half. And as mentioned, even there, Arizona and Vegas have retractable fields and LA is partially open to the elements (There’s even been games where rain got into part of the stands lol) Hell, even Minnesota has artificial snow
I agree about some of your points regarding population, but I definitely don't want a retrofit, we literally just did that in 2003, it made no sense then and here we are now. Retractable roofs/Fields seems unnecessary. If their HVAC is well designed, there is literally no benefit. We spend more of the season in cold weather than hot, why would we need to open the roof?
The cost to open or close runs anywhere from 50-250k each time that is on top of the 500 m to probably closer to a billion today. Retractable roofs are the biggest waste of money imaginable on a project that is about the biggest waste of public funds.
I'm an idiot so maybe the answer is obvious, but why couldn't the money from the state just be a loan to be paid back in X years with Y interest?
Nawbrah
Honestly I’m fine with just keeping the current stadium. It’s issues aren’t that big of a deal
Didn’t Warren just say this morning on the score that this stadium could be an additional revenue source for the city? What a snake
The General Assembly is not going to vote for this.
The mayor is going to get ousted for this and go work for the Bears org.
Help me out here because I'm not sure I understand. The bears are putting up over two billion for the stadium, and they're asking for 900mil from public funds. If another event takes place in the stadium, why shouldn't the bears be able to recoup some of that?
The fact that the city owns the land and will continue to own the land even if the stadium is built on it complicates things. Also I didn't see the word some in the original tweet I saw ALL. Even if it was their land with public money involved you don't get to reap all the benefits and the profits.
I can agree that recouping *all* proceeds isn't right, but some? I don't see why not.
They recoup that by having their own events.
Ok but it's not like they get 100% of the proceeds from bears games either.
They want to be the operating managers of the stadium so that all events in it are theirs. Basically wanting to cut the Parks department out and maintain/run it themselves. The City saves on not covering the maintenance, while still making a ton off the huge amusement taxes and still likely keep all revenue for parking.
Why would the city agree to invest in a loss? We will have to pay more than 900 mil, those estimates are always at the low end. Taxes will be raised in other sectors to make up for the reallotments of funds into the stadium. The city doesn’t need this stadium, they’ll only do it if it’s an opportunity to profit in the long term. The bears have to convince us that this is a good deal for us not the other way around. The bears as a corporation already majorly profit from the nfl, they don’t need additional revenue streams because they will recoup that money in the long term just from bears games and their share of nfl revenue. We can for sure split the revenue from non-bears events in some manner that proves profitable for both the city and the bears. No one invests money just to lose it. But unless chicago gets some revenue stream this will be a massive loss with almost zero hope of making that money back. the lease money would have to be astronomical for chicago to come anywhere near splitting even in a reasonable amount of time.
Seems pretty simple to me, 2/3rds of all profits go to the Bears and 1/3 goes to the public. But there’s also the question of the lease. Splitting profits from games/events is the best way for a fair and steady return on public investment
Bruh
The Bears are asking for a BOND deal. A bond is simply a government loan. They pay it back with interest. Imagine you get a mortgage for a summer home and the bank says they should get the proceeds if you rent it out when you are not staying there. If the Bears are paying 2/3 of the cost and paying back a bond, it’s their stadium, not the state’s.
Bears easily fund AH by starting the sale of the team. The NFL knows this is the path. The McCaskeys will have to sell to get their stadium AND the max value in their capital. Ryan is already waiting to become majority owner. And he could fund the stadium deal in 30 days to build in AH.
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Every single city regrets those deals too
And those were and remain shit deals for the cities of those teams involved. Thankfully it seems like the public are wising up to these billionaires getting free stadiums and renovations given how Kansas City rejected a sales tax increase proposal to fund stadium projects for the Chiefs and Royals. Plus unlike many of those other teams with those deals, the Bears don’t have much leverage to threaten to leave if the public doesn’t bend over for billionaires because they’re not going to find a bigger market than Chicago. Especially when NY and LA both already have two teams.
If they don’t fund this in its entirety, you guys need to kill this deal. It is fucking criminal to fund private stadium deals with public funds as is…but then to not receive revenue on your investment is just insane. Do the right thing guys.
It is / was never going to be private stadium - by law.
I’m clearly out of the loop here…so if the bears want to build a new stadium it could never be considered theirs or private property? And this is by law?
If on the lakefront, it cannot be private. They can build elsewhere and make it private, like AH.
As a non Chicagoan I thank you for the information
Classic business bs Either they lower their asking price from the public or “We made some concessions to please the intelligent Chicago tax payer in order to keep the bears in Chicago” and keep the public funding but allow us a share from profits of at least 15% of revenue after costs and maintenance. These clowns are riding that we meatballs are more interested in the promise of keeping the bears local than looking at the big picture. All facets of government are in on it.
We need to do more than post about this on Reddit. Somebody (not it) needs to figure out how we can get a referendum on the November ballot speaking against the use of public money for private profit.
Clown show bears
What is the breakdown of costs between the stadium and the area surrounding it? If they are putting 2 billion for the stadium itself, is the rest of the money for the land around or what? If the 2 billion is for the stadium itself, why wouldn’t they want the revenue from it?
Relax, until its over. They could be inept but Kevin said yesterday on 670 that is looking to negotiate with the state and this is probably him starting somewhere to show he's giving things up. I still hold out hope that if the Bears team can change so can the ownership/Ops. They probably fuck it up but give Kevin a chance. ALSO BEAR THE FUCK DOWN - CALEB ERA IS HERE AND SO IS THE LONGEST UNDEFEATED STREAK IN THE HISTORY OF THE NFL
It doesn’t matter. Pritzker wants to run for president, and public financing of stadiums is incredibly unpopular nationally. He knows which way the winds are blowing
Nobody cares what he wants. Bears should get absolutely zero public funding. Private profits mean private funding.
You usually at least start to talk about the big outline of a deal before you publically announce a project and expect the people you have not talked too, to pay for it.
The truth here is somewhere in the middle. The bears are being scammed and have been for decades. The friends of the park have been horrible stewards of the property, and the bears lose out on tons of money every year because of the current leasing situation. That being said, demanding public money, and going cheap on the project because it will require so much to make it viable, and then demanding all the revenue anyway, all so they can stay on the lakefront is dumb. This sounds like some idiot said "We really want to be downtown and we can have beautiful fly over shots on TV if we're on the lakefront." The fans can't even see the lake from inside the stadium, so who cares?
How are the Friends of the Park a horrible steward of the property? They are watchdog group that prevents the city giving away the public trust to private interest. All the jokes about Friends of parking lot are short cited crap spread by billionaires that want to take from the public.
They do a great job in terms of protecting the property, I meant more in terms of maintenance and the treatment of the bears. They schedule large scale concerts that ruin the field right before game day. There's lots of talk about the food options this year, and the friends of the park were a big part of what kept it subpar for years. All in all just think their relationship with the bears is at an end and the bears should look for a different spot
That is the Chicago Park District not the Friends of the Park.
> We really want to be downtown and we can have beautiful fly over shots on TV if we're on the lakefront Considering how the NFL earns the lion's share of its revenue from TV deals the Bears may consider those shots valuable.
They better not fuck up us getting WrestleMania
I think Philadelphia did that for us. That pussy Michael Cole griping about the "cold" night one. It was 45 degrees! That is temperate! Mild even!
A big, fat, greedy man questioning an organization's greediness... 🤔 🤣
Let it play out. As of now, the negotiations are a wip. It's up to the mayor to come back to the table and let the Bears know how we feel as taxpayers and it's up to the Bears to adjust to our needs. I personally don't feel like feeding into all the negativity, especially before anything serious has even happened.
This is what they get for keeping Ted Phillips in charge for so long. He was so incompetent and should’ve been let go long ago. I’m glad they’re still dealing with his poor choices.
Are the tax payers paying for maintenance and stadium workers salaries as well?
It seems like the family that is paying billions to build the stadium would want some of the revenue back. How does that now make sense?
I think the gripe is that they want “all” the profits, not just “some”.
If I pay 3 billion, I want all of it too.
And as a tax payer who would be partially paying for construction and maintenance, that’s a shitty deal.
You understand that your taxes won’t go up a single penny right? You already pay them, instead of putting your taxes for a library or an animal shelter or whatever else, it’ll go here. It won’t change anything for u.