Chicago Bears: Illinois Senator scolds team after stadium bill fails to pass

The Chicago Bears are going to need an overtime miracle to pass a bill that would provide help for the team to build in Arlington Heights.

The Illinois General Assembly concluded business in the early hours of Monday morning, and a Hail Mary attempt to allow the Bears to gift the stadium to municipalities to own (instead of paying property taxes) failed to pass.

The option would have brought Chicago back into the race to challenge Arlington Heights for the stadium, and would need to be resurrected via a special session this summer.

In the meantime, the only viable option for the Bears at the moment appears to be Hammond, Indiana.

During an appearance on The Score’s “Mully & Haugh Show” on Tuesday, Illinois senator Ben Cunningham scolded the Bears for flirting with Chicago in April and May, which caused representatives from the city to decide not to vote for a plan that would have aided Arlington Heights.

Cunningham noted that 15 Illinois senators and 28 representatives have Chicago addresses. He said it was “frustrating” to work with the Bears.

“Working with the Bears has been frustrating from the beginning,” Cunningham said. “They pivoted between various plans back and forth between Arlington Heights and the lakefronts, and that shifting continued right up until the spring when they were publicly saying there was a binary choice between Arlington Heights and Hammond, while they were conducting what’s called back channel discussions with the city of Chicago.

“Those discussions completely undermined their efforts in Springfield during the legislative session. I think they pumped hope into the idea that a lakefront stadium was still possible, and that made it all the more difficult to get Chicago members to support a plan for Arlington Heights.”

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The Chicago Bears are asking a lot from Illinois

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Cunningham thought the Bears were asking a lot from Illinois to support the stadium, as typically sports teams use local funding to fund projects instead of asking the state to foot the bill, like when the San Francisco 49ers moved to Santa Clara, California.

“I’m not sure the public, and even the Bears themselves, understand how unusual of a political feat the Bears are trying to pull off, because I can’t think of a single instance where a professional sports franchise has moved from one city to another within the same state and received a subsidy for a tax break from the state government,” Cunningham said.

It still hasn’t happened yet, at least for the Bears.

It remains to be seen how the team chooses to proceed this summer. The NFL wants the Bears to get going on a new stadium, and the team only has Hammond as an option unless the Bears fund the project in Illinois themselves.

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