In an offseason surprise, some Chicago Bears fans got an email this week asking their opinions on seating options and pricing for a new stadium.
Is this a sneak peek at the new seats, and does it signal plans are moving forward for a move to Arlington Heights?
Some of the fans who received the email have long histories with the team, and there are a lot of concerns. But at least one expert asked for a quick time out on the speculations, though he does think this signals the team is moving forward with their plan to move to the northwest suburbs.
On a muggy Wednesday morning in July, there was no football on the schedule. But that didn't stop some tourists from visiting Soldier Field, taking a tour of the iconic stadium.
"We're just navigating in our area here, and it was great, because it was right along the Red Line stop and easy to get to," said Carla and James Taylor, who were visiting from Canada.
But this week brought a new surprise for loyal fans — some of them ticketholders — who have in some cases concluded that the Bears won't be playing at or near that iconic stadium much longer. They opened their inbox to find a survey telling them, "The Chicago Bears are committed to building a new fixed-roof stadium," with a link to various seat options and prices.
One fan, who did not want to be on camera, said he has sticker shock. So CBS News Chicago wanted to know what sort of prices the Bears were exploring.
The fan bought a "permanent seat license," or PSL, for four seats in 2002 during Soldier Field renovations — at a price of $1,105 each. Adjusted for inflation, that amounts to $1,962.53 in today's money — and the fan still has to buy game tickets every year on top of it.
But CBS News Chicago found the Bears floating the idea of a purchase price in his same section more than double that — $4,450 each.
"People should relax," said Marc Ganis, sports industry consultant and president of Sports Corps Ltd. "This is a long process, and we're at the beginning of it."
Ganis said the Bears are likely modeling options after other new NFL stadiums, and said season ticket buyers should expect higher prices.
"Twenty-five years ago, it cost $600 million to renovate Soldier Field," Ganis said. "The new stadium is going to cost upwards of $3 billion, so it's just the nature of the beast."
But there is one other takeaway here.
"It's telling me that the Bears want to get a sense of what their market will bear for PSL and other seating products within their new stadium wherever it might be, but it's looking like Arlington Heights," said Ganis.
In that survey, the Bears said there are no pricing decisions or requirements for tickets yet.
Ganis likens the survey to the first quarter of Bears ticket price research.
The made a bid to buy the old 326-acre Arlington International Racecourse in 2021.
While they closed that $197 million deal in 2023, and later demolished the racetrack's grandstand and other buildings, plans to build a stadium there were delayed amid a dispute over property taxes.
The Bears later pivoted to plans for a domed stadium on the Chicago lakefront, unveiling a $4.7 billion proposal that would have relied on $2.4 billion in public funding. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has called that plan a "nonstarter," and said public funding for a Bears stadium would not be a good deal for taxpayers.