Actually the Mara family has done alright by me in my years as a fan. And you are right, I wouldn’t, I’m old and set in my ways and have a family legacy of rooting for the giants. There are many many fans who aren’t as entrenched in fandom as I am for my team. A third team in New York would make less sense because they already have AFC and NFC representation and are clearly bordered by Eagles and Patriots fan bases that already heavily overlap and hate each other. Chicago easily has the capacity to successfully welcome an AFC team. I get why the Bears and their diehard fans would feel threatened by that, but it would definitely work.

It really would be interesting to see what the respective fan bases would look like if the McCaskeys moved to Arlington Heights and a new team came into a new dome near downtown. Bears fans would skew older and older and the recent B1G grads and tourists might make the new team the more popular going forward.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

That’s all im saying, plenty of fan base to go around.

What does that accomplish though? They'd be the White Sox of football.

My guess is you want an AFC team in Chicago to root for because you like the Giants.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

An alternative? A fun cross-town rivalry? Variety? Something better than Jacksonville?

That's not accurate. I love Chicago, but it's been very slowly losing its national prominence since at least the early 80's. How long do you think it's going to be before Houston passes it? Also, Phoenix is growing and may pass it in about twenty years. The NFL is going to find a new market or at least give a team to an expanding market before they give a second team to Chicago. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if the White Sox left at some point over the next 20 years.

I root for the giants and watch every game of theirs so I wouldn’t be target fan base for them. It would DEFINITELY spice up the sports talk radio, that’s for sure.

2 football teams in Chicago has been done before. Do they get a second bite at the apple?

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"I honestly don't see a good bet on the board here."

I've thought about this a bit as I was driving around today. There is one scenario where I think the NFL grants a second Chicago team: that a truly star-studded roster of African American "royalty" including some with Chicago roots buy a team and want to move it. Obama, Jordan, Woods, the Payton family, Jeter, some musicians and some movie stars, some Fortune 500 CEO/COOs.

It would be easier if there was a path to expansion, but I don't see the league expanding to 36 even with a European expansion.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

I agree that the current rules would make it hard to get a second team, but I would LOVE to see the McCaskeys have to publicly argue against an all-minority owned team that stated it wanted to be in Chicago.

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Yet my 23 year old watches every game.

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2018
#ExtendLafleur
10 More Wins

You're lucky.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

Even if he isn't here, we are constantly texting about games. Like Schwarber's Nuke bomb he just hit.

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2018
#ExtendLafleur
10 More Wins

I bet your texts this past Sunday were great

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He was here, we were in misery together.

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2018
#ExtendLafleur
10 More Wins

The Bears want to be in Chicago. The city doesn't want them any more. Remember the comments of the mayor?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

my youngest son also loves watching games on tv, maybe even more than me

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

I've noticed that if I watch in the family room that my boys show up. Doesn't matter if its college or NFL or any sport. They might not be fully engaged and they don't have the meatball reactions I do but they do express a lot more interest than they did 5-10 years ago when I would get a "football? Again?" grown from them.

I think the "death of sports" was overblown because competitive video games had a big growth phase but has mostly fallen off. College sports stadiums are still seeing huge student sections.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

The only way this happens is if the second team comes in and has immediate and sustained success. I'm talking at least two Super Bowl appearances another two-three playoff appearances in the first 8-10 years they are here. Anything less, and the Bears will prevail much to your chagrin.

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My son has always been a football nut. One of his earliest football memories is the run-up to the super bowl in 2007. Now he tries to come home from Champaign on Sundays so we can watch the games together. If he cant make it we text throughout the game and it is fun. We are currently trying to arrange a 1-day trip to MetLife to catch the Eagles game - fly out early, shuttle to the game, then shuttle back to the airport and home that night. I hope we can pull that together. Neither of us have ever been to MetLife, it would be a great day.

I think that the Bears will always rule the NFL landscape in Chicago just due to tradition. A second team would have no problem carving out a fan base however.

That's my point. The only way to break tradition would be for a new team to be what is essentially an NFL/AFC powerhouse for about a decade. Then as kids, teens, and twentysomethings continue to grow older, their 'tradition' is now the Jaguars with the Bears as an afterthought.

Agree a second team would not have an issue in acquiring a fanbase.

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I'm not even sure that would be any more than a temporary dual fandom situation. Just look at how many people on here who live in Chicago still stay loyal to out of town teams. I stayed loyal to the Bears while not living in the area.

The best you can hope for is the Chicago Jaguars to get fans that are fans of out of town NFC teams so you may get a weird dynamic of Chicago Packers fans who also root for the Chicago Jaguars. That's basically why I was a nominal Jets fan when I lived in New York but even that was kind of lame because who cares about a backup team?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

This is all hypothetical of course...

But if the Bears continued to do what they have done for the better part of 15 years- make the playoffs once in a while and be mediocre or bad otherwise- while a second team in Chicago is playing in Super Bowls and AFC Title games almost yearly, then the tide might turn to make the Bears the second team in town.

That is the only way RR's situation becomes permanent.

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Is there anyone on the board who says they are Bears fans now but would switch to the Jaguars if they came here assuming the Bears are in Arlington Heights and the Jaguars play somewhere in the city limits of Chicago likely in Soldier Field?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Aren't most of those people already Packers or Patriots or Cowboys fans now anyways though?

You don't need the Jaguars to move here to root for a team that wins a lot more than the Bears.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I get texts with every bomb, White Sox and playoffs. Oddly my oldest pretty much lost interest in the NFL after a brief period of chasing parlays.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

Sure, but you saw what happened with the Hawks in 2010. Suddenly everybody was a big Hawks fan. It became the cool thing to do. A second NFL team could have a similar affect.

And I know NFL >>> NHL, but still.

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Lame? Isn't being a fan of a sports team that you have no friend or relative connections to, lame to begin with? You are actually arguing a degree of lame, which in itself, is lame.

Be a fan of whoever. Because it's all lame.