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Among the off-season fates that can befall a football city, none is crueler than losing its team. Crueler still is losing it to another state. In Chicago, fans have reason to brace for this scenario.
After the Illinois state legislature scrapped their Thursday meeting to discuss development plans for a new Chicago Bears stadium, while Indiana proceeded with theirs, this future seems likeliest. Even the Bears seemed to suggest as much in a Thursday statement committing to work with Indiana. As a Northwest Indiana native, I expect the Bears soon to play much closer to home.
Mind you, Soldier Field isn’t a shoddy venue. I’ve been and enjoyed. But it is old. And it is lacking in “modern” — really, this means luxury — amenities, like premium suites and a dome.
So, Soldier Field will never host a Super Bowl. Heaven forbid fans bundle up or, worse, sit in bleachers — alongside other fans — to cheer on the team they love. And heaven forbid the sport preserve community, but perhaps this is the cost of excellence. Because a Super Bowl, more than any other game, means money, the Bears must get a-moving.
For Chicagoans, it must be a hard farewell. Soldier Field embodies such an integral city tradition. But traditions restrict and, in this case, cost more money. In a high-expense, high-revenue industry like football, this makes an easy target for franchisees to axe.
That’s why the Bears are bound to migrate. Economically, Illinois is offering them pennies on Indiana’s dollar. No public funds, no property tax exemption. And the team's current home state doesn’t seem eager to dole out anything. After all, Illinois leaders canceled their meeting that could have kept the Bears on their turf by providing these incentives. Indiana, on the other hand, did not.
The situation resembles the reversed plot of a rom-com — one in which the love interest, the Bears, drove to the airport to meet her new fiancé as slowly as she possibly could, and the longtime boyfriend, Illinois, exerted no effort to patch things up. To this point, the Bears purchased land for a stadium in Arlington Heights, Illinois, three years ago. For some reason, the state never made a deal with them to build there. Meanwhile, the Buffalo Bills, who bought land in their native New York the same year, are scheduled to open their new stadium in July.
As it turns out, the state of Indiana, not just IU’s Curt Cignetti, is king of the transfer portal. On Thursday, the Indiana House of Representatives’ Ways and Means Committee passed Senate Bill 27 to be considered on the floor. The bill would establish an agency with the power to procure investors, acquire land and finance construction for a new stadium in Northwest Indiana.
“There’s a shared commitment between both parties to make this happen,” Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston, R-Fishers, said.
But in effect, Chicago lost the Bears in December when the prospect of packing up for Indiana first arose. Subsequent news over the past several months — failed deals in Arlington Heights, Illinois, and offers from Gary and Portage — showed how fragile the link between a team and its city really is. The mere possibility of relocation is enough to induce an identity crisis.
If the Bears can leave Chicago, are they still the Bears? Presumably, they are. The name would stick, and the roster that played the farewell-to-Chicago season would largely mirror the one debuting the hello-to-Hammond year.
Granted, they’ll also remain in Chicagoland, but as any disgruntled Chicagoan would attest, the suburbs, let alone Indiana’s Region, are not part of the city. And who’s to say the team won’t one day stray farther — to Iowa?
After all, the Cardinals, Chicago’s original football team established in 1898, left the city for Missouri in 1959 before they arrived in their current home, Arizona, in 1987. And in no sense are the Cardinals a Chicago team today. Does the same fate await the Bears, the new Hammond Pros?
What’s in a team? That’s da question.
Eric Cannon (he/him) is a sophomore studying philosophy and political science and currently serves as a member of IU Student Government.
