Posted on 06/05/2026 10:33:48 AM PDT by nickcarraway
The Bears took a significant step toward leaving Illinois on Friday.
The Bears' board of directors voted Thursday to advance their stadium development in Hammond, Indiana, with the exact site still to be determined. This is this first time that the Bears' board has voted on any stadium site.
The Bears' plans to leave the state they've called home since their inception for Indiana come just days after the end of Illinois' spring legislative session.
"We believe a world-class stadium project in Hammond will transform the region, connecting Northwest Indiana and the South Side of Chicago through the Loop and across the neighborhoods and suburbs stretching north of the city," Bears chairman George H. McCaskey and CEO Kevin Warren said in a statement.
The Bears' announcement Friday does not guarantee the team will leave Illinois. Per a league source, while Indiana is "in the lead" to lure the Bears across state lines to build a domed stadium, "Illinois can still get back in the race," the source said.
"The club has kept the stadium committee and league office apprised of all developments," NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy told ESPN
After the "megaprojects" bill -- a proposal that would have allowed the Bears to negotiate payments in lieu of paying property taxes on the Arlington Heights, Illinois, property they currently own -- died in the Illinois senate last weekend, a late push was made with alternative legislation.
At 11 p.m. Sunday, Illinois state Senator Bill Cunningham (D-Chicago) introduced new legislation that would allow Cook County cities with more than 70,000 residents (like Arlington Heights and Chicago) to create their own sports stadium authority. The Bears would pay for the construction of the new stadium, which the franchise has dedicated $2 billion in funding toward, and the land would be publicly owned.
The new bill passed the Illinois Senate 37-17 at 3:39 a.m. on Monday. The House adjourned after 4:30 a.m. without taking a vote.
The Bears currently own a 326-acre property on the former site of the Arlington International Racecourse, which the team purchased in 2021.
The team has maintained that they cannot build a stadium without property tax certainty, which Indiana passed legislation to ensure in February.
Oh, football bears.
I thought bears were moving closer to a stadium, raiding trash cans along the way.
Anything that hurts Chicago democrats is okay by me!đ
No, I am saying tax dollars should not be spent nor given away. They can make as much as they want on their own merit. I don’t watch sports, so why should I pay anything towards it? Probably more than 50% of tax paying Americans agree.
I guess when you can’t hunt them they take over everything eventually/s
I agree. It will help them to accelerate attracting smaller and less visible businesses from Chicago.
Interesting enough, both stadiums in NYC and LA are privately funded.
Obviously you couldn’t get past the first line, so let me copy and past the rest:
Let me explain something to you- thereâs a reason cities fall over themselves to bring an NFL franchise to town and build new stadiums- its a money maker- not just because of football games but everything else (concerts/soccer/Olympics/etc) involved...
NYChitty shouldâve learned a hard lesson when they refused to upgrade Shea stadium in 1984 and the Jets ended up leaving, but they didnât...now whether its 17 regular season football games or Taylor Swift concerts or the Super Bowl or now the World Cup, most of which i donât care about, its New Jersey raking in the bucks...
In time, over the next forty years, cities in the Midwest will continue to gain and Chicago continue to decline.
Chicago is in a political death spiral that it has dragged Illinois into. The good people have continued to leave which keeps leaving an ever greater concentration of voters who support Illinois politics as it is. The worse it gets, the worse it will get.
Either way the Bears are leaving Chicago. They are just trying to minimize their taxes in Arlington. Nobody in their right mind wants to invest in or go to downtown Chicago.
what stadium in NYC are you referring to??
Kroenke funded Sofi but got a ton of concessions and improvements around the stadium...
And i hope it happens....
I would love to see the team leave for Indiana- then, in the tradition of the Indy 500, have the song “Back Home Again in Indiana” played before each game!!!!!
Damn Pritzger. Damn Illinois democratsâŚ.
Damn Pritzger. Damn Illinois democratsâŚ.
The Indiana Bears?? Taxes should be better for them in IN than the People’s Republic of Communism and Murder of Chicago.
I didnât mean to post it twice, but what the hellâŚdamn Pritzger. Damn Illinois democrats. There. I said it again.
Is going to the bears kind of like going to the dogs?
There is too much money in âCrook Countyâ. They call it Crook County for a reason.
The crooked politicians in Illinois just wonât let it happen. There will be bribes, payoffs, promises, threats, etc,,,,,,,whatever it takesâto convince the Bears to stay in Illinois.
This will never happen.
True, by less than 10 miles. The Arlington Hts location already has a Metra train station right at the location. I’ll think they’ll end up in Arlington Hts.
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