There are a lot of options right over the border that aren't Gary. If the Bears aren't going to get anything from the city or state it has to be considered. They aren't staying in the current Soldier Field and seemingly something about Arlington Heights has them concerned because it seems like a no-brainer to just do it there.

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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!

Put them in Whiting so our gas prices magically go up.

They own the property in Arlington Heights. One way or another...with or without any kind of public funding, that is where the Bears will build their stadium. Discussing these Chicago or Indiana locations are a waste of air.

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Without public funding, they can't afford to build in Arlington Heights, and people here don't want them screwing with property taxes or school funding.

I know it sounds trite, but this team has a .391 winning percentage post-Double Doink and it's only going down as the year goes on. Who was the last team to have a six-year run that bad and be gifted billions of dollars in public money?

EDIT: I suppose it'd be the Raiders, who moved.

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JB Pritzker wants to essentially kick off his 2028 presidential campaign by getting the Bears to bend the knee and accept a midlife refresh on their current building. A high profile act of fiscal responsibility. He gets to pain himself as a master negotiator who took on the NFL and won.

Of course in reality he only bent over an inbred tribe of Irish usurpers who don’t have a dime to their own name and lack even an ounce of leverage. I think even the league is growing weary of this and would rather it just get wrapped up.

Not winning anything since 2012 and running by the most nauseatingly and anachronistic DEI-focused front office in the league has ruined their only shot at winning over enough public affection also. People hate the Bears.

Nailed it


Well, the Irish usurpers and their legions of spoiled bootlickers who believe 65,000 people should drive to a parking lot in the suburbs and back out like it's a Costco.

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My God, this is painfully accurate.

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I don’t think the stadium is going to be a McCaskey project. Whatever the outcome, it’ll take years to agree to something and years more to construct that thing.

Unless Ginny is immortal you’re looking at a real life billionaire at the helm when it’s nut cutting time.

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75-103 since they fired Lovie, won the division once, 0-2 playoffs. In some ways it's not as bad as like when the Buffalo Bills went 7-9 for like 15 years in a row but in other ways it's considerably worse.

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They could easily fund it. It's not like these things require you to pay the cash up front. You don't think a bank is going to be willing to front them the money when the risk of default is less than 0?

They just seem to be obsessed with staying near downtown now but everyone is taking advantage of that fact. Jerry would have had moving vans to Salt Lake City sitting in front of the stadium by now and then they'd get what they want.

Ultimately, the biggest failing of the McCaskey family is they are the only owners in the country that are overly nice to the city and state they reside in and they just accept the worst stadium deal possible.

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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 idea that the Bears need a new stadium is a fiction. A false-narrative spun up by a greedy family that feels the walls closing in. It is the tenth newest stadium in the NFL. It should be at the halfway point of its lifespan, there is genuinely nothing at all wrong with it.

Its looks have even started to age a little better now that blue glass skyscrapers have become ubiquitous. I think it’s still grotesque, and I hate this trend in architecture, but it’s not even the worst offender. Not when Trump Tower exists.

If it was easy they’d have done it by now. Simple as.

Agree 100%

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The problems with Soldier Field:

- the playing surface sucks
- it's a bitch to drive to and park at
- getting there via transit isn't so great either
- cannot host WrestleMania, Final Four, Super Bowl, year-round stadium concerts

I don't know what's stopping us from improving the grass, but a fixed-roof stadium would have plastic grass, which is worse than natural grass by any measure, and is probably carcinogenic anyway.

The driving and parking is going to be a problem anywhere, if not more so in Arlington Heights where the roads aren't set up for that kind of traffic and can't be. There's only one location that could potentially be transit-friendly; anything else is just subbing one problem for another.

Mick Jagger is like 90 and we've survived this long without a Final Four and it's been fine.

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Soldier Field is a shithole

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Complete dump.

“It’s fine” is a succinct acceptance of mediocrity.

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It’s what they wanted twenty years ago. In twenty more they can something new. Tough shit. If they want it so bad they can pay for it themselves, but they can’t so they can promptly go fuck themselves.

It shouldn’t be an NFL stadium and they should pay for its replacement themselves. Both are true.

They just don’t have the money to do it and anybody suggesting they can just borrow $5bn+ doesn’t have a great handle on CRE financing.

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The Bears wanted a low-capacity stadium with plentiful luxury boxes and the closest front-row seats in the league. They got everything they wanted. It's still being paid off. Our dreams of hosting minor-league basketball championships will have to wait.

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People don’t like the playing surface so they demand the Bears spend ten billion dollars on football Disneyland. Does not compute. Soldier Field is fine, end of story.

Someone who knows better than I do will have to explain why we can't do that hybrid system Lambeau has where the grass roots wrap around the reinforcement fibers. It seems to keep their field together pretty well, and it's better than kicking up pulverized rubber tires.

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Because this is intentionally left in a substandard state to create a false sense of urgency to give the McCaskey family a few billion in public dollars. All the problems people have with Soldier Field could be remedied in a midlife refresh, which the government should be happy to shoulder the burden for.

Isn’t there or at least wasn’t there some soccer requirements that forced them to keep real grass? Hoping World Cup again?

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Elections have consequences.

We were left out of the World Cup bid, and there are soccer fields in England that use reinforced grass.

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Let them move when Virginia dies. The chances a new team coming in would be more incompetent is possible, but low.

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Schererville/Dyer/Crown Point is built out anyway. Which is crazy to think about when you grew up around there in the 80s and these were quaint little towns that barely felt like Chicagoland, dwarfed by the now rundown suburbs on the Illinois side of the state line. The Bears (or the Sox when people fantasize about that) would have to go even further out unless Hammond wanted to bulldoze what's left of its downtown or something crazy like that.

Plenty of land out near my in-laws in Laporte county! Let's move them out that way!

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Your FIL would tell George McCaskey to get off his lawn. Otherwise, Laporte is nice. Spent much childhood summertime around there.

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Elections have consequences.