‘The Bears have introduced politics to this’ — Illinois Senator shifts the blame for the failed stadium bill and who’s really at fault
Illinois Senator Bill Cunningham made sure to place the blame on the Chicago Bears for causing such a difficult headache regarding the failed stadium proposal to keep the team in the state.
The Chicago Bears’ chances of staying in the state of Illinois hit a roadblock early Monday morning when the state’s House of Representatives did not vote on the proposed stadium bill, which was passed by the state’s Senate.
If passed by the House of Representatives, the bill would have allowed the Bears to fund its own stadium with private funding while making the building publicly owned so the team wouldn’t have to pay property taxes. Since it wasn’t passed before the deadline, the lawmakers won’t return to Springfield until the fall veto session, unless a special session is called by Illinois governor JB Pritzker.
In a statement released by the team, the Bears’ timeline of late spring / early summer remains the same with two stadium options either in Arlington Heights or Hammond. The former is starting to look even more unlikely and the state might not be to blame.
Illinois Senator Bill Cunningham dishes blame on the Chicago Bears for this difficult stadium process
Speaking on 104.3 The Score Tuesday morning, Illinois Senator Bill Cunningham made it clear who’s to blame after the adjournment happened without a vote from the House on the proposed stadium bill. Keep in mind, this is the same Senator who introduced new legislation the in first place.
“Working with the Bears has been frustrating from the beginning,” Cunningham explained. “They’ve pivoted between various plans, back and forth between Arlington Heights and the lakefront. That shifting continued right up until the spring when they were publicly saying there was a binary between Arlington Heights and Hammond, while they were conducting – let’s call them backchannel discussions – with the city of Chicago. Those discussions completely undermined their efforts in Springfield.”
Those accusations line up with what Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said about the team having interest in reconsidering Chicago as a site for the new stadium, even if the team continued publicly denying the city as one of their viable options.
“I think they pumped hope into the idea that a lakefront stadium was still possible,” Cunningham added. “That made it all the more difficult to get Chicago members to support a plan for Arlington Heights.”
Chicago Bears are the reason this turned into a political battle in the first place
As everyone I’m sure knows by now, the Bears have been sitting on the 326-acre property on the former site of Arlington International Racecourse since February of 2023. It turns out, the Bears could have started breaking ground on that land this entire time and instead invited this political drama to occur.
“I think we use sight of the fact that there’s nothing stopping the Bears from breaking ground in Arlington Heights tomorrow and building a stadium,” Cunningham said. “They can do that. There’s no law prohibiting them from doing that. The village of Arlington Heights wants them [to do that]. The problem is, they don’t want to do that unless they get a massive tax break from the state of Illinois.
So, they’ve introduced the political complication to this matter. I know people get frustrated about the politics of this. The Bears have introduced politics to this. They’re a private business, they can build a stadium there tomorrow. They’ve chosen not to do that without the public support. That injects politics into the situation.”
Back in April, Bears team president and CEO Kevin Warren said the team would not be able to build a stadium without tax certainty. The team got that tax certainty passed in the state of Indiana and the final proposal Illinois’ Senate passed on Monday was similar in structure to that deal. However, the reason that caused everything to fall through wasn’t just due to the back-channeling with Chicago.
Cunningham also noted how rare it is for professional sports organizations to move from one city to another, within the same state, a received a tax break from the state government. He even called it a “political feat” the Bears are looking to pull off because Chicago natives don’t want to see the Bears leave for another city in Illinois.
“To get that to pass, they need Chicago members to vote for it,” Cunningham explained. “There are 15 state Senators and 28 state Representatives with Chicago home addresses. Getting them to vote for a big tax break to encourage any business to leave the city of Chicago is daunting. I think the Bears didn’t really know what they were bargaining for.”
At this point, the Bears have basically exhausted all efforts in Illinois, unless they want to wait until the end of the year. It’s their own fault based on everything Cunningham has laid out Tuesday and now we wait to see whether or not Indiana was a bluff.