Why can the Chicago Fire announce it’s building a new stadium, complete with a chosen site, while the Bears and White Sox dither?
C’mon, you know the answer. It’s always the same.
Money. More to the point, our money.
The Bears went to the General Assembly begging for help to build their $5 billion home for eight or nine regular-season games and one or two exhibition games a year. The governor and legislative leaders told the Bears a while ago they didn’t have a couple of billion dollars lying around for a state-of-the-art dome, but the Bears went begging anyway.
And the Bears came up empty when the legislative session ended last week with no money for a Bears stadium, in Arlington Heights or Chicago or anywhere else in Illinois.
The White Sox? It’s been pretty quiet on the stadium front for a while now, despite Thursday’s news that the Ishbia family will be adding some money to the club bank account. Maybe the White Sox heard the state leaders loud and clear and moved on?
One team did get some good news from the legislature. The Stars put out a news release championing the “equity amendment” that requires the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority to consider building for women’s teams as well as men’s. It doesn’t mean the Stars will get state money, or should get state money, but they can plead just like the Bears and White Sox.
Now here come the Fire and billionaire owner Joe Mansueto, who says he’s willing to put up his own money to build a $650 million stadium for his club at Chicago’s “78” property along the Chicago River in the South Loop. Yes, the same site the White Sox were interested in. He’s bypassing the General Assembly and going straight to … his own wallet?
Not only that, but the Fire also recently opened a new training facility not too far from the stadium site.
That ought to get him kicked out of the billionaire sports owners club for good.
Mansueto hasn’t had much success since becoming sole owner of the Fire in 2019, and not just because he couldn’t wait to get out of the suburbs. When he said he would spend $65 million to buy out the Fire’s lease at SeatGeek Stadium in Southwest suburban Bridgeview and move the team’s home games – when there were no conflicts with the Bears – to Soldier Field, most of us in the independent news media figured it was a temporary gig. Surely this would just be a short stop on the way to a soccer-specific stadium downtown.
For a few years Joe said no. He thought the Fire could fill Soldier Field, or at least a good part of it. He learned the hard way why we kept asking him if Soldier Field was a pit stop, pointing out it’s too big for Fire crowds, too hard to get to and just not a great stadium anymore, among many other reasons.
Now if there’s one way Mansueto has been a typical Chicago sports team owner, it’s in building a playoff team. Or not building a playoff team, to be more accurate.
The 11th-place Fire (6-5-4) seems modestly improved this year under new coach/director of football Gregg Berhalter, but it still isn’t being confused with former Sister Cities rival and reigning Champions League champion Paris Saint-Germain. Since 2009 the Fire has two playoff appearances (the last in 2017), one playoff goal and zero playoff wins. But if the Fire ever makes the MLS playoffs again, it will have a chance to fill its new 22,000-seat open-air stadium, even if Lionel Messi isn’t walking out of the opponent’s locker room.
So kudos to Joe Mansueto for moving forward on a stadium without requiring charity from Illinois taxpayers. Here’s hoping the Bears, White Sox and Stars learn from his example.
Now if only one of them can set a good example by building a championship contender.
Daily Herald Sports Editor Orrin Schwarz can be reached at oschwarz@dailyherald.com.
Fire owner Joe Mansueto will build a new soccer-specific stadium for the club without using public funding, he announced this week. Photo courtesy of Chicago Fire FC