The Chicago Bears bought Churchill Downs in 2022. It became clear they planned to build a new stadium at that point. All that was needed was arranging the necessary finances and clearing the bureaucratic red tape. Three years later, and the team still seems no closer to getting it done. While the Bears have managed to work out an agreement with Arlington Heights on property taxes, the biggest hurdle hasn’t changed. They need assistance from the state to get the necessary infrastructure done.
As we’ve seen, Governor Pritzker and his government have not budged on this issue for years. They believe the Bears are one of the most highly valued organizations in sports. They should be able to fund the project themselves without requiring any public funding. This is the issue that killed any hopes of a downtown stadium for team president Kevin Warren. That is why the Bears pivoted back to Arlington Heights. Hopes are high that something finally gets done next spring. Unfortunately, the Chicago Tribune made it sound like that might be wishful thinking.
This is because the team still hasn’t gotten the original message.
The team since has switched gears to the former Arlington Heights racetrack property it owns and says it now will finance the entire stadium construction cost. There’s just the small matter of needed “public infrastructure” work to make the project feasible.
The estimated cost of that? A whopping $855 million.
That’s according to a consultant’s report commissioned by the village of Arlington Heights and paid for by the Bears. You’ll notice that the figure is not too far below the $1 billion request that torpedoed the Bears’ lakefront dreams.
This page has supported the principle that government generally bears some responsibility to pay for legitimate infrastructure in order to support development sizable enough to generate a big number of jobs and major economic growth. But at some point, depending on the scale, that infrastructure tab begins to morph into subsidy. At $855 million — and let’s be honest, the cost likely will be higher — we think the Bears already are at that point.
The Chicago Bears might have to consider the nuclear option.
It is pretty apparent that the state government is unlikely to budge on this issue unless the team can offer clear indications of a positive return for taxpayers. Stadium projects rarely do that, even if various other events can be hosted there when the Chicago Bears aren’t playing. That means Warren and the McCaskeys have two options. Either they must find a way to foot the bill themselves, or they have to start playing dirty.
Nothing leads to more turmoil in sports than battles over new stadiums. States don’t want to pay for them. Owners don’t want to pay for all of it. In many cases, this leads to a bitter standoff. Several times, the teams have outright left the city for a new home. The Colts and Browns are two examples of this. Using the bluff of moving can often lead to political backlash.
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It seems that the only way the McCaskeys may get the reaction they want from Springfield is by threatening to relocate the team. Not just to the suburbs, but out of the state entirely. It’s a cheap tactic, but history doesn’t lie. It works. The key will be whether the Bears are prepared to follow through on the threat.