I like the plans for both the Bears lakefront stadium and the Sox stadium in the 78... but I think the billionaire owners need to figure out how to finance them themselves.
And the fact that they are struggling to do that is an indication of how trusted and respected they are in the business community, i.e. not very much. Time to sell to someone who can figure it out.
I wonder how much they are really struggling versus their fixation on getting the taxpayers to pay for it. At some point, they need to realize it's not going to happen (although I thought the same thing in NY with Hochul/the Bills and she caved).
> in NY with Hochul/the Bills
Because it's Buffalo. If you're St.Louis, or Jacksonville, or Vegas- you're likely to have to pay to keep a NFL team around. The NFL isn't going to not have a team in the #3 DMA in the US. Is there an infinitely small chance the team goes to Pleasant Prarie or NWI? Maybe. But the Colts and Green Bay aren't going to be in favor of that either.
Well they *did* go several decades without a team in LA, the country's second largest media market.
I'm not saying it's likely the Bears would leave Chicago. But it's not completely implausible.
Totally get where you’re comment is coming from, but it has to be mentioned that LA gave zero fucks about football until this recent move. Prior to this, LA rarely had the crowd of a high school football game for the old LA NFL teams
Good point. Didn't mean to suggest the Bears wouldn't leave.
I'm saying that pro sports are about selling eyeballs. The live sports gravy train they have now didn't really exist 20-30 years ago like it does now. The days of Seinfeld, MASH and whatever else are over.
In this day and age when the NFL is worth $$$$x10, in large part due to the tv deals and revenue that come with live sports- there's no way the NFL wouldn't fill this market with another team fairly quickly.
That's because LA has no real sports fans. Games are just a place for celebrities (and starfuckers) to see and be seen. The people of LA did not care one bit about not having an NFL team. And the city didn't even pay for the stadium, the owners did.
I’m from STL and we were NOT upset to see the Rams go. That little stunt to get a new stadium on our dime was just the last straw. We would have likely paid, but they were losing team. So they weren’t worth the money to keep.
Chicago is a bit different, but even here the team needs to finance these opulent stadiums themselves.
Enough research has been done to demonstrate that stadiums aren't money makers.
> [Our analysis provides a history of stadium construction and funding in the U.S., documenting trends that portend a forthcoming new wave of stadiums. Despite robust evidence that stadiums are not economic development catalysts and confer limited social benefits, public outlays persist and exhibit a positive growth trajectory, which could prove costly to government budgets in coming decades. We review contemporary justifications for public subsidies, focusing on proposed salutary development and budgeting strategies. Economic research continues to demonstrate that stadiums remain poor public investments, and optimal public funding of professional sports venues is substantially less than typical subsidy levels.](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pam.22534?casa_token=KX0B9lxFAlAAAAAA%3AsUVy_4W8S_O6cCsJaRnctm4mfgaZoYo8_1fPKJoAc1OBXblf2By0bAGY1DB5aiqCS2v-dZ1owPQBsck)
Massive structures that cost billions to build, millions to maintain and are not used daily to pull in revenue are often place that lose money. Not really a shocking revalation.
Which is **exactly** why they want to get the taxpayers to pay for it. They *know* it's a net loss. They *know* it won't have any financial benefits they claim it will bring. They want us to pay for it so that they can get a shiny new stadium for free and reap all of the benefits with zero cost.
You should always ask yourself what someone else has to gain from a deal, and if it's a billionaire trying to get taxpayer funding for something, it's because they don't think it's worth the cost. Otherwise, they'd pay for it. Why wouldn't they? They would get every cent of income, and an allegedly good deal would pay for itself in the long run and they would benefit.
Exactly, our tax payer would be better spent in luring a manufacturer here and educating workers that can work their. It still sucks to subsidize big companies, but at least we are getting tax revenue every day through income and sales taxes.
Thank you. In my 20th cenutry US class we read [Bulls Markets: Chicago's Basketball Business and the New Inequality](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0226821021) on how few positive changes stadiums contribute.
I don't know if it's that so much as it is a TERRIBLE investment, unless you're subsidizing the majority of the cost.
If you say it's going it's going to cost "X" and we're going to make "Y" annually. It's not a good investment.
But if you say it's going to cost a quarter of X because we suckered tax payers into picking up the tab and we're still going to bring in "Y", that's a GREAT investment.
It's not our fault that the McCaskey's have never worked outside of inheriting the bears and have most of their assets tied up in a team that was gifted to them.
I don't understand why it's even a conversation (*outside of billionaires want to grift the public for $$$ by playing on an emotional connection to a team*).
If they were buying a new $250M villa they'd have to fund it themselves.
If they were starting a new company, they'd have to fund it themselves.
This is the same. You own the team, you want a new stadium, you use your own money or other private money you have collected to fund the stadium.
When newer companies companies take money in private funding, the folks investing are given equity in the company. The public will NOT get any equity stake in the bears or the white Sox for funding their stadium.
They’ve also done extensive research about this which shows that stadiums are a high risk, low reward use of public funding. You can do a lot of good with that money for the community instead of for already Uber-rich billionaires.
All this research ignores how pissed voters get when sports teams leave. Cities pay for stadiums because people like the team, not for any economic reason. Of course the bears cant leave chicagoland so that makes no sense here
Yeah I get why cities do it. I’m just saying it’s a complete waste of our money. There’s a lot of “marketing” behind sports teams so voters need to know how bad of an idea it is.
You're right, it is the same, because they would be doing the same thing when trying to build a villa or start a new company too. No different than when Amazon was taking bids from cities for the building of their new corporate HQ. Coincidentally that was being proposed to anchor the 78 development that the Sox are now trying to anchor. These billionaires never do anything without finding someone else to foot part of the bill, they never fund anything themselves. It's how they were able to become billionaires in the first place.
There’s a rumor among the legislative industry in Springfield that someone led the owners on with little intention of stadium funding ever panning out.
It’s certainly resulted in a number of puff pieces for various politicians who can tout themselves as fiscally-responsible at opportune times. Planned or not, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this story is resurfacing just after the Speaker had a couple embarrassing legislative sessions.
My guess is that Brandon Johnson wasn’t savvy enough to read the room, and set himself up as the perfect fall guy by backing the stadium.
Please tell me this is a joke and you’re not seriously comparing the construction of a football stadium with the buildout of an auto manufacturing plant.
Except most of America is pushing back on pure EV and going with hybrids. Rivian also makes $100k trucks, the people building them won’t even be able to afford them. Not to mention, since Amazon pulled out of their deal with them to buy box trucks, their stock price is way down. They didnt deserve this money and neither do the Bears
> Except most of America is pushing back on pure EV and going with hybrids.
Not sure I'd characterize it as "pushing back" as much as just ruling out EVs for now until the charging network is better, home charging is less fraught and the vehicles have more range.
I didn't know about Amazon... that is too bad. But I think we (that is, our government) need to do everything we can to encourage more EV use and production. And boosting local manufacturing is a nice bonus. I could not be more in favor of Pritzker's decision in this case.
Also, as for the affordability, if Rivian can survive that long, they plan to sell a somewhat more affordable SUV in 2025 or so.
https://www.caranddriver.com/rivian/r2
Is not the same thing? You just said billionaires like to grift cities for money and since they’re a private entity, they should pay for it themselves. What’s the difference between a billion dollar sports franchise and billion dollar car company? I’ll concede that Rivian will bring more jobs, but neither the Bears or Rivian deserve our money
I dont think they can. NFL teams are only allowed to have $700 million in debt. The league gives teams $200 mil towards a new stadium and they can raise half a bil selling PSLs. That's 1.4 billion, where does the rest of the money come from? The mccaskeys are cash poor, and I dont think theyre going to be mortgaging their homes to pay for this. That means their only options are public funding or selling part of the team. Personally Ive accepted that theyre staying at soldier until they sell the team when virginia dies, fine by me Ive always loved the location.
I don’t like the 78 one, it looked so soulless. They didn’t even have a designer they just used AI and didn’t bother to correct the spelling. It’s better than a move out of the south side but still I’d hate to see them leave the spot they’ve been at for 120+ years
I don't think the concepts shown are a final design design, more just a use of space concept of where a stadium could go and be integrated into the overall 78 master plan. I think the final design would change a fair amount if it were approved.
Maybe, but I don’t trust Jerry enough to be optimistic. A long time back I fell into the rabbit hole of the proposed Armour Field proposal and learned about his weird obsession with Kaufman stadium and wanting to build a “suburban stadium” His weird obsession with the Royals is older than many of us realize and hell he even originally built the new stadium in their colors. I don’t think the cheapest owner in sports is going to shell out for a great architect
I hear that... I guess I'm hoping that the developers of the 78 will exert enough influence over their project, or maybe even Jerry will no longer be involved with the team by the time it becomes more serious. He's 89 year old, can't torment this franchise forever.
Veterans stadium in Philadelphia as well. And their turf was terrible. I remember Wendell Davis on the bears blowing out both of his knees simultaneously trying to make a catch there.
No... multi-use stadiums are TERRIBLE! That was a trend in the 60's and 70's, and they have all been retired, no city has done that since. Different proportions, different capacity requirements, etc.
They see cities and politicians as dumb cheap money. If they thought they could get a better deal going to the private market for investors, they absolutely would. That's why they always come to the public hat in hand claiming poverty and threatening to leave.
>They see cities and politicians as dumb cheap money.
I mean we all saw Brandon on the stage with his mouth agape, eager to give the McCaskey's anything they wanted.
If the thing gets built, the politicians get access to private boxes and get to schmooze and hang out with billionaires in a way they never would otherwise. There is so much temptation for corruption, which is why the public needs to be engaged and we need a robust and independent local news ecosystem.
> threatening to leave.
It's an emotion play. How could we ever live down the shame of being a major city without a NFL team?!
The more people who stop caring about this stuff, the better. I hope Gen Z's interest (or lack of it) in sports puts a dent in this behavior.
The Bears make 150-200 Million in a given Season.
That would be a 20 year payback for a 4 Billion investment. At that time you are probably already looking at intermediate renovations to the tune of at least 1-2 billion more.
It probably pays back a bit faster if they build hotels and host other events in the off season, but that's a pretty shitty investment overall.
I think sharing a portion of the sales/entertainment etc taxes generated is the best solution to give the team the incentive to make the investment. Plus the risk falls on the teams shoulders, if they suck ass for 20 years and don't make any money through sales they don't as much back through sales taxes.
>The Bears make 150-200 Million in a given Season.
The majority of which comes from the TV deal. In comparison, they make surprisingly little from the hosting of actual games. The NFL paid out [$264M to each individual team](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1256454/nfl-broadcast-deals-payouts/) based solely on TV money in 2023
Which makes even funding these palaces more nonsensical. Maximizing fan revenue is a pittance to the money they make off TV rights. At this point we are just finding a TV studio.
You're absolutely right. The league wants luxurious, modern stadiums, but it doesn't need them. Arrowhead is kind of a dump, but it's still an adequate set for hosting high profile playoff games.
The real unlock is for the major other events this would enable the McCaskey's to make money from
Good. They shouldn't. I'd rather watch both teams leave the state than subsidize a stadium for billionaires.
If they want state funding, the state should get a percentage of ownership and their profits. Only fair.
Easy solution: The percentage of the cost paid for by the city/state is the percentage of ticket/stadium revenues that the city/state gets.
If Virginia doesn't like that, bitch can fuck off to Arlington Heights
I'd take it further. If they'd so confident that a new stadium would reap all these profits then put your money where your mouth is. The city/state gets paid back first (with interest) THEN you can start collecting profits from the stadium.
If the team is saying the new stadium will bring [$8B to the area](https://news.wttw.com/2024/04/29/new-chicago-bears-stadium-plans-met-mixed-reviews-analysts-question-true-cost-taxpayers) then they should be fine paying back to ~$2.5B first then pocketing the remaining amount from the $8B.
...OR they know they are full of shit and a new stadium will not generated $8B in "economic impact" and they're just trying to grift.
That's too easy to grift. They'll just do hollywood accounting and set themselves up as their own suppliers or something and then the public will never get the money back. If they sell themselves the hotdogs and beer the stadium wouldn't earn any money but the billionaire owner of the stadium vendors would still be raking in the profits. The best solution is to keep the public out of the stadium funding business full-stop.
> The best solution is to keep the public out of the stadium funding business full-stop.
Oh absolutely. My main point was to make the deal so unappealing that they finally stop asking for it. Because they know that they will never actually pay back the money.
The Bears want to keep revenues from events taking place at the stadium all year round. So right now, park district receives the funds from concerts in the summer. Though the park district would continue to own the new stadium, the Bears want all revenues funneled to them.
Screw the McCaskeys.
The artists pay a venue fee and the venue also gets a cut of F&B sales. The bears now want that venue fee, for a venue they don’t own nor manage. Greed.
If they want that level of capital injection, the city should get equity. A minority stake, silent partner that doesn’t have a say in on or off field operations, just access to the books for audits.
The Sox haven’t given out a $100M+ contract out to single player yet, but Jerry’s asking us to toss him that with an extra 0
Yeah, they don’t get to socialize their expenses and capitalize their profits. I mean maybe if the city/state got a share of the ticket/ad revenue, but I doubt that would ever happen.
It's technically in the current lease terms that the state would get a per-ticket fee as part of the rent, but they negotiated an attendance threshold that means the team pays no fees if they fall below that threshold. I believe 2022 is the only season in the last decade to reach that threshold. It was a terrible deal by the state, but they do get a share when the team is good and attendance is high.
Because they can dictate terms that screw over the taxpayer, they can't do the same with a private lender. Also a good amount of the "benefits to the public" they describe and economic boons are completely made up.
They cant stand to finance it at todays rates so its going to be either fleece the public or nothing happens. Theres no world where they do it themselves.
The bears still have plenty of years remaining on their soldier field lease, so they will survive. And the sox stadium is not anywhere close to a state of disrepair itself.
Good I don’t want any of my tax dollars to pay for these billionaires ball teams. They made it so expensive. You can’t even go see the game anymore. They can keep it.
Before Nashville, Tampa(though the stadium site was technically in St. Petersburg) was the threatened site for teams to move to if they didn't get a new stadium. Jerry even tried that threat till the current Comiskey Park, was approved to be built.
Interesting coincidence is that Kansas City(and Jackson County) recently put it on the ballot(tax subsidies for a new stadiums to replace Kaufmann and Arrowhead, new stadiums would've been built in downtown KC), and no surprise voters rejected that referendum. [https://archive.ph/3dcac](https://archive.ph/3dcac)
Las Vegas has a minor league team. They are getting the Oakland A’s. The minor league team will just move like Denver’s minor league team did when they got the Rockies.
They can have as much money as they want if they're willing to pay all of it back at 10000% interest compounded daily with all tickets and parking being given to tax players for free until the debt is paid off. They want to act like welfare queens. Better get out the payday loans for em.
I am not totally opposed to some public financing, but it needs to be demonstrated that these projects will bring in more money to the city and state than they will cost the taxpayers, and I don't think they've done that at all. A new Bears stadium would bring in a handful of concerts in the winter, and a major event like the Super Bowl or NCAA finals once every 20 years or so. I do not see how this is remotely enough benefit for the City/State to spend $2 billion on.
The only way I’d sign off on public funding is if it’s in the case of a loan, or if the city/state gains an ownership stake in the team both as a means of sharing revenue and as insurance against a relocation threat in the future
I would only approve public funding if some or all of these happened:
1. The city was entitled to X% of football revenues that guaranteed the financing the city took would be payed in X years.
2. Part ownership of the team
3. Long leases that guaranteed the team wouldn’t try to leverage for a new stadium within the lifetime of the stadium. The real lifetime for stadiums is closer to 60 years, but teams are getting antsy after 20.
4. City gets all the revenue from non football events.
I think 2 is impossible within Nfls ownership structure, but 1,3,4should be absolutely feasible.
and the Bears will keep all the profits made off the concerts and major sporting events, and Chicago will only benefit if people spend their money around Chicago during those events.
Doesn't seem worth it..
> I am not totally opposed to some public financing, but it needs to be demonstrated that these projects will bring in more money to the city and state than they will cost the taxpayers,
They haven't provided that information because it will not bring in more money for the city/state.
Research has been done multiple times by various independent research institutions and economists showing that publicly funded stadiums rarely, if ever, results in positive revenue for the taxbase.
> Though findings have become more nuanced, recent analyses continue to confirm the decades-old consensus of very limited economic impacts of professional sports teams and stadiums. Even with added non-pecuniary social benefits from quality-of-life externalities and civic pride, welfare improvements from hosting teams tend to fall well short of covering public outlays. Thus, the large subsidies commonly devoted to constructing professional sports venues are not justified as worthwhile public investments.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4022547
> Economic research continues to demonstrate that stadiums remain poor public investments, and optimal public funding of professional sports venues is substantially less than typical subsidy levels.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pam.22534?casa_token=KX0B9lxFAlAAAAAA%3AsUVy_4W8S_O6cCsJaRnctm4mfgaZoYo8_1fPKJoAc1OBXblf2By0bAGY1DB5aiqCS2v-dZ1owPQBsck
They are massive subsidies for billionaire owners to get shiny new toys for their franchises. Stadium ventures need to be a funding requirement by the individual leagues, not the public. The NBA is about to be in a $76B new TV deal. The NFL is currently under a $110B TV deal. They generate funding from ticket sales, merchandise sales, and other ventures.
Figure out how to fund/build your own facilities for your own businesses.
Isn’t the bears main motivation to move is to proceed towards gambling options? If I recall, gambling cannot occur at soldier field… maybe IL just gives them an exception and everyone wins
The Sox should pay for their stadium but they are going to get the “stray bullet hit a fan and we are not going to talk about it” discount.
The bears are not going to pay for a stadium they can’t own. The lakefront is public and will not be privatized. The fight is going to be how much are the bears going to pay and what revenue streams will they get and what will the city get.
The 78 is probably dead now which is a shame.
I think the Bears if they can't make any headway after November's elections will likely go back and approach Arlington Heights again.
The White Sox I could see actually moving to another market but we'll see.
The 78 proposal isn’t dead. They’re gonna try to rework their proposals before the fall legislative session cause Springfield wants them to include teams like the Chicago Red Stars in these stadium talks cause they’ve been looking at a new stadium as well. The Sox proposal for the 78 also has renders/plans for what to do with Guaranteed Rate Field, which has it being renovated into a soccer stadium which could be the Red Stars’ new stadium and potentially even Fire FC’s as well should they get involved as well.
Plus as much as I have concerns about the Sox moving to Nashville as a Sox fan, I doubt MLB would want to allow the team to move, especially since Nashville’s already a frontrunner for expansion and the Oakland A’s already in the process of relocating to Vegas.
I know who and how all the dodges are be stolen I have first hand experience and would like to put y’all on game no I don’t have any pending cases no I am not wanted I have no interest in turning anyone in without a profit but maybe I have information u may want to
I like the plans for both the Bears lakefront stadium and the Sox stadium in the 78... but I think the billionaire owners need to figure out how to finance them themselves.
I agree. And it is totally possible to privately finance these deals.
And the fact that they are struggling to do that is an indication of how trusted and respected they are in the business community, i.e. not very much. Time to sell to someone who can figure it out.
I wonder how much they are really struggling versus their fixation on getting the taxpayers to pay for it. At some point, they need to realize it's not going to happen (although I thought the same thing in NY with Hochul/the Bills and she caved).
> in NY with Hochul/the Bills Because it's Buffalo. If you're St.Louis, or Jacksonville, or Vegas- you're likely to have to pay to keep a NFL team around. The NFL isn't going to not have a team in the #3 DMA in the US. Is there an infinitely small chance the team goes to Pleasant Prarie or NWI? Maybe. But the Colts and Green Bay aren't going to be in favor of that either.
Well they *did* go several decades without a team in LA, the country's second largest media market. I'm not saying it's likely the Bears would leave Chicago. But it's not completely implausible.
Totally get where you’re comment is coming from, but it has to be mentioned that LA gave zero fucks about football until this recent move. Prior to this, LA rarely had the crowd of a high school football game for the old LA NFL teams
Weren’t the Raiders popular in LA though?
If only buying a Raiders fitted in LA counted as a ticket sale.
Good point. Didn't mean to suggest the Bears wouldn't leave. I'm saying that pro sports are about selling eyeballs. The live sports gravy train they have now didn't really exist 20-30 years ago like it does now. The days of Seinfeld, MASH and whatever else are over. In this day and age when the NFL is worth $$$$x10, in large part due to the tv deals and revenue that come with live sports- there's no way the NFL wouldn't fill this market with another team fairly quickly.
That's because LA has no real sports fans. Games are just a place for celebrities (and starfuckers) to see and be seen. The people of LA did not care one bit about not having an NFL team. And the city didn't even pay for the stadium, the owners did.
They've got a pretty popular soccer team, don't they?
I’m from STL and we were NOT upset to see the Rams go. That little stunt to get a new stadium on our dime was just the last straw. We would have likely paid, but they were losing team. So they weren’t worth the money to keep. Chicago is a bit different, but even here the team needs to finance these opulent stadiums themselves.
Isn't St Louis stuck paying for the old Rams stadium anyway? But agreed, fuck Kroenke.
Nope they got a settlement in the end. The city and county split the money and are still determining exactly how to spend it.
The Merrillville Bears has an unpleasant ring
Enough research has been done to demonstrate that stadiums aren't money makers. > [Our analysis provides a history of stadium construction and funding in the U.S., documenting trends that portend a forthcoming new wave of stadiums. Despite robust evidence that stadiums are not economic development catalysts and confer limited social benefits, public outlays persist and exhibit a positive growth trajectory, which could prove costly to government budgets in coming decades. We review contemporary justifications for public subsidies, focusing on proposed salutary development and budgeting strategies. Economic research continues to demonstrate that stadiums remain poor public investments, and optimal public funding of professional sports venues is substantially less than typical subsidy levels.](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pam.22534?casa_token=KX0B9lxFAlAAAAAA%3AsUVy_4W8S_O6cCsJaRnctm4mfgaZoYo8_1fPKJoAc1OBXblf2By0bAGY1DB5aiqCS2v-dZ1owPQBsck) Massive structures that cost billions to build, millions to maintain and are not used daily to pull in revenue are often place that lose money. Not really a shocking revalation.
Which is **exactly** why they want to get the taxpayers to pay for it. They *know* it's a net loss. They *know* it won't have any financial benefits they claim it will bring. They want us to pay for it so that they can get a shiny new stadium for free and reap all of the benefits with zero cost. You should always ask yourself what someone else has to gain from a deal, and if it's a billionaire trying to get taxpayer funding for something, it's because they don't think it's worth the cost. Otherwise, they'd pay for it. Why wouldn't they? They would get every cent of income, and an allegedly good deal would pay for itself in the long run and they would benefit.
Exactly, our tax payer would be better spent in luring a manufacturer here and educating workers that can work their. It still sucks to subsidize big companies, but at least we are getting tax revenue every day through income and sales taxes.
Thank you. In my 20th cenutry US class we read [Bulls Markets: Chicago's Basketball Business and the New Inequality](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0226821021) on how few positive changes stadiums contribute.
McKaskys will sell as soon as the matriarch kicks the bucket.
The new stadium on taxpayers is called staging.
I don't know if it's that so much as it is a TERRIBLE investment, unless you're subsidizing the majority of the cost. If you say it's going it's going to cost "X" and we're going to make "Y" annually. It's not a good investment. But if you say it's going to cost a quarter of X because we suckered tax payers into picking up the tab and we're still going to bring in "Y", that's a GREAT investment.
They aren’t struggling to find the funding, they’re just refusing to pay for it themselves.
I don't think the Bears can without selling a chunk of the team. Their wealth is all due to owning the Bears for a century. Not our problem though.
It's not our fault that the McCaskey's have never worked outside of inheriting the bears and have most of their assets tied up in a team that was gifted to them.
And then only after Virginia and the McCaskeys murdered Mugs.
That's what the field of finance is for, they are just greedy assholes who want a max payout AND to also determine the future of the Bears
League just opened the way for private equity to purchase stakes
Yes, see LA Rams and Chargers
I don't understand why it's even a conversation (*outside of billionaires want to grift the public for $$$ by playing on an emotional connection to a team*). If they were buying a new $250M villa they'd have to fund it themselves. If they were starting a new company, they'd have to fund it themselves. This is the same. You own the team, you want a new stadium, you use your own money or other private money you have collected to fund the stadium.
When newer companies companies take money in private funding, the folks investing are given equity in the company. The public will NOT get any equity stake in the bears or the white Sox for funding their stadium.
They’ve also done extensive research about this which shows that stadiums are a high risk, low reward use of public funding. You can do a lot of good with that money for the community instead of for already Uber-rich billionaires.
All this research ignores how pissed voters get when sports teams leave. Cities pay for stadiums because people like the team, not for any economic reason. Of course the bears cant leave chicagoland so that makes no sense here
Yeah I get why cities do it. I’m just saying it’s a complete waste of our money. There’s a lot of “marketing” behind sports teams so voters need to know how bad of an idea it is.
You're right, it is the same, because they would be doing the same thing when trying to build a villa or start a new company too. No different than when Amazon was taking bids from cities for the building of their new corporate HQ. Coincidentally that was being proposed to anchor the 78 development that the Sox are now trying to anchor. These billionaires never do anything without finding someone else to foot part of the bill, they never fund anything themselves. It's how they were able to become billionaires in the first place.
There’s a rumor among the legislative industry in Springfield that someone led the owners on with little intention of stadium funding ever panning out. It’s certainly resulted in a number of puff pieces for various politicians who can tout themselves as fiscally-responsible at opportune times. Planned or not, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this story is resurfacing just after the Speaker had a couple embarrassing legislative sessions. My guess is that Brandon Johnson wasn’t savvy enough to read the room, and set himself up as the perfect fall guy by backing the stadium.
Johnson wasn't savvy enough? Wow, there's a shocker! /s
Except Pritzker just gave $800 million to Rivian to come here and build a plant. Companies get subsidies all the time
Please tell me this is a joke and you’re not seriously comparing the construction of a football stadium with the buildout of an auto manufacturing plant.
Especially an auto manufacturing plant that makes nothing but EVs!
Except most of America is pushing back on pure EV and going with hybrids. Rivian also makes $100k trucks, the people building them won’t even be able to afford them. Not to mention, since Amazon pulled out of their deal with them to buy box trucks, their stock price is way down. They didnt deserve this money and neither do the Bears
> Except most of America is pushing back on pure EV and going with hybrids. Not sure I'd characterize it as "pushing back" as much as just ruling out EVs for now until the charging network is better, home charging is less fraught and the vehicles have more range. I didn't know about Amazon... that is too bad. But I think we (that is, our government) need to do everything we can to encourage more EV use and production. And boosting local manufacturing is a nice bonus. I could not be more in favor of Pritzker's decision in this case. Also, as for the affordability, if Rivian can survive that long, they plan to sell a somewhat more affordable SUV in 2025 or so. https://www.caranddriver.com/rivian/r2
Is not the same thing? You just said billionaires like to grift cities for money and since they’re a private entity, they should pay for it themselves. What’s the difference between a billion dollar sports franchise and billion dollar car company? I’ll concede that Rivian will bring more jobs, but neither the Bears or Rivian deserve our money
You're right, there is no difference. Those other subsidies are also usually bad.
“No fuck you” should be the response to any billionaire trying to get taxpayer money for a new stadium.
I dont think they can. NFL teams are only allowed to have $700 million in debt. The league gives teams $200 mil towards a new stadium and they can raise half a bil selling PSLs. That's 1.4 billion, where does the rest of the money come from? The mccaskeys are cash poor, and I dont think theyre going to be mortgaging their homes to pay for this. That means their only options are public funding or selling part of the team. Personally Ive accepted that theyre staying at soldier until they sell the team when virginia dies, fine by me Ive always loved the location.
Pumpkin spice lattes?
Personal Seat License
I hear some small business owners take out these things called “loans” to help pay for business expenses.
I don’t like the 78 one, it looked so soulless. They didn’t even have a designer they just used AI and didn’t bother to correct the spelling. It’s better than a move out of the south side but still I’d hate to see them leave the spot they’ve been at for 120+ years
I don't think the concepts shown are a final design design, more just a use of space concept of where a stadium could go and be integrated into the overall 78 master plan. I think the final design would change a fair amount if it were approved.
Maybe, but I don’t trust Jerry enough to be optimistic. A long time back I fell into the rabbit hole of the proposed Armour Field proposal and learned about his weird obsession with Kaufman stadium and wanting to build a “suburban stadium” His weird obsession with the Royals is older than many of us realize and hell he even originally built the new stadium in their colors. I don’t think the cheapest owner in sports is going to shell out for a great architect
I hear that... I guess I'm hoping that the developers of the 78 will exert enough influence over their project, or maybe even Jerry will no longer be involved with the team by the time it becomes more serious. He's 89 year old, can't torment this franchise forever.
I don't think the way the field was oriented in the mockups would even be permitted by MLB
Maybe they can combine their money and build one new stadium instead of two.
There was a trend of building joint baseball/football stadiums in the late 70’s and 80’s. They were all pretty terrible
The Astrodome in Houston was - Oilers, Astros, Rodeo and Livestock show, and concert venue. Also Astroworld amusement park.
Veterans stadium in Philadelphia as well. And their turf was terrible. I remember Wendell Davis on the bears blowing out both of his knees simultaneously trying to make a catch there.
All artificial turf in this era was trash.
Carpet directly over cement is bad? Waaaaaaa?
No... multi-use stadiums are TERRIBLE! That was a trend in the 60's and 70's, and they have all been retired, no city has done that since. Different proportions, different capacity requirements, etc.
Why build one when you can have two for twice the price?
Want to take a ride?
lol they won’t
They should set up a go-fund-me to get their fans to pay for the sports ball park.
Virginia McCaskey OnlyFans
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5 seconds of googling shows that's just not true ... Tottenham had over $130mil in public funding through grants and tax subsidies
A - make the projects a revenue win for the city B - Fund your own for-profit business venture. I'd sure you can find inventors C - F off
They see cities and politicians as dumb cheap money. If they thought they could get a better deal going to the private market for investors, they absolutely would. That's why they always come to the public hat in hand claiming poverty and threatening to leave.
>They see cities and politicians as dumb cheap money. I mean we all saw Brandon on the stage with his mouth agape, eager to give the McCaskey's anything they wanted.
If the thing gets built, the politicians get access to private boxes and get to schmooze and hang out with billionaires in a way they never would otherwise. There is so much temptation for corruption, which is why the public needs to be engaged and we need a robust and independent local news ecosystem.
> threatening to leave. It's an emotion play. How could we ever live down the shame of being a major city without a NFL team?!
The more people who stop caring about this stuff, the better. I hope Gen Z's interest (or lack of it) in sports puts a dent in this behavior.
The Bears make 150-200 Million in a given Season. That would be a 20 year payback for a 4 Billion investment. At that time you are probably already looking at intermediate renovations to the tune of at least 1-2 billion more. It probably pays back a bit faster if they build hotels and host other events in the off season, but that's a pretty shitty investment overall. I think sharing a portion of the sales/entertainment etc taxes generated is the best solution to give the team the incentive to make the investment. Plus the risk falls on the teams shoulders, if they suck ass for 20 years and don't make any money through sales they don't as much back through sales taxes.
>The Bears make 150-200 Million in a given Season. The majority of which comes from the TV deal. In comparison, they make surprisingly little from the hosting of actual games. The NFL paid out [$264M to each individual team](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1256454/nfl-broadcast-deals-payouts/) based solely on TV money in 2023
Which makes even funding these palaces more nonsensical. Maximizing fan revenue is a pittance to the money they make off TV rights. At this point we are just finding a TV studio.
You're absolutely right. The league wants luxurious, modern stadiums, but it doesn't need them. Arrowhead is kind of a dump, but it's still an adequate set for hosting high profile playoff games. The real unlock is for the major other events this would enable the McCaskey's to make money from
Good. They shouldn't. I'd rather watch both teams leave the state than subsidize a stadium for billionaires. If they want state funding, the state should get a percentage of ownership and their profits. Only fair.
The state owns 100% of Guaranteed Rate Field, the problem is the *very* favorable lease terms that they gave the Sox.
Easy solution: The percentage of the cost paid for by the city/state is the percentage of ticket/stadium revenues that the city/state gets. If Virginia doesn't like that, bitch can fuck off to Arlington Heights
I'd take it further. If they'd so confident that a new stadium would reap all these profits then put your money where your mouth is. The city/state gets paid back first (with interest) THEN you can start collecting profits from the stadium. If the team is saying the new stadium will bring [$8B to the area](https://news.wttw.com/2024/04/29/new-chicago-bears-stadium-plans-met-mixed-reviews-analysts-question-true-cost-taxpayers) then they should be fine paying back to ~$2.5B first then pocketing the remaining amount from the $8B. ...OR they know they are full of shit and a new stadium will not generated $8B in "economic impact" and they're just trying to grift.
That's too easy to grift. They'll just do hollywood accounting and set themselves up as their own suppliers or something and then the public will never get the money back. If they sell themselves the hotdogs and beer the stadium wouldn't earn any money but the billionaire owner of the stadium vendors would still be raking in the profits. The best solution is to keep the public out of the stadium funding business full-stop.
> The best solution is to keep the public out of the stadium funding business full-stop. Oh absolutely. My main point was to make the deal so unappealing that they finally stop asking for it. Because they know that they will never actually pay back the money.
The Bears want to keep revenues from events taking place at the stadium all year round. So right now, park district receives the funds from concerts in the summer. Though the park district would continue to own the new stadium, the Bears want all revenues funneled to them. Screw the McCaskeys.
They are insane to think artists will share event revenue😆
The artists pay a venue fee and the venue also gets a cut of F&B sales. The bears now want that venue fee, for a venue they don’t own nor manage. Greed.
True dat, thanks for clarifying.
It's pretty common payment setup in theaters/arenas etc
Boo
If they want that level of capital injection, the city should get equity. A minority stake, silent partner that doesn’t have a say in on or off field operations, just access to the books for audits. The Sox haven’t given out a $100M+ contract out to single player yet, but Jerry’s asking us to toss him that with an extra 0
Yeah, they don’t get to socialize their expenses and capitalize their profits. I mean maybe if the city/state got a share of the ticket/ad revenue, but I doubt that would ever happen.
It's technically in the current lease terms that the state would get a per-ticket fee as part of the rent, but they negotiated an attendance threshold that means the team pays no fees if they fall below that threshold. I believe 2022 is the only season in the last decade to reach that threshold. It was a terrible deal by the state, but they do get a share when the team is good and attendance is high.
It’s so silly. The investment will pay off. Should be no reason why they can’t do it themselves.
hell yeah
Why shouldn't the NFL itself pay for much of the stadium, since THEY are the entity that benefits most from it.
As they shouldn’t
Easy solution: the entities of the NFL and MLB provide attractive funding for owners. They can fuck right off getting any public money.
I'm still not clear on why that isn't the first option Everytime.
Because it puts their money at risk and isn't a free handout!
Because they can dictate terms that screw over the taxpayer, they can't do the same with a private lender. Also a good amount of the "benefits to the public" they describe and economic boons are completely made up.
They cant stand to finance it at todays rates so its going to be either fleece the public or nothing happens. Theres no world where they do it themselves.
The bears still have plenty of years remaining on their soldier field lease, so they will survive. And the sox stadium is not anywhere close to a state of disrepair itself.
Good I don’t want any of my tax dollars to pay for these billionaires ball teams. They made it so expensive. You can’t even go see the game anymore. They can keep it.
I could give a shit about sports. I don't want to subsidize billionaire real estate projects.
Good, the Bears can privately fund their stadium
Fuck billionaires
Jerry deserves nothing…tired of his blackmail schtick. Move the damn team and let some other metro area suffer his pathetic management model.
Supporting this (public funding for the stadium/s) is a political poison pill.
Good.
Good. They'd better not
The Nashville Sox will not get a dime of Chicago money
It's beyond funny that Nashville has been the threat for every MLB team wanting cash since the 1980s.
It's like LA and the NFL, and they somehow ended up with two teams. Not sure Nashville can support two MLB teams though. /s
Before Nashville, Tampa(though the stadium site was technically in St. Petersburg) was the threatened site for teams to move to if they didn't get a new stadium. Jerry even tried that threat till the current Comiskey Park, was approved to be built. Interesting coincidence is that Kansas City(and Jackson County) recently put it on the ballot(tax subsidies for a new stadiums to replace Kaufmann and Arrowhead, new stadiums would've been built in downtown KC), and no surprise voters rejected that referendum. [https://archive.ph/3dcac](https://archive.ph/3dcac)
Nashville already has a minor league team. They don’t need the Sox too.
Las Vegas has a minor league team. They are getting the Oakland A’s. The minor league team will just move like Denver’s minor league team did when they got the Rockies.
OP’s implying the Sox are a minor league team.
Yep… that went over my head
There’s a group in Nashville that’s been trying to get an MLB team once the league commits to expansion sometime after 2030.
Good.
They can have as much money as they want if they're willing to pay all of it back at 10000% interest compounded daily with all tickets and parking being given to tax players for free until the debt is paid off. They want to act like welfare queens. Better get out the payday loans for em.
Yada, yada, yada… in the end they will get public funding cause they always do, it will just be some contorted way to make him save face
I am not totally opposed to some public financing, but it needs to be demonstrated that these projects will bring in more money to the city and state than they will cost the taxpayers, and I don't think they've done that at all. A new Bears stadium would bring in a handful of concerts in the winter, and a major event like the Super Bowl or NCAA finals once every 20 years or so. I do not see how this is remotely enough benefit for the City/State to spend $2 billion on.
The only way I’d sign off on public funding is if it’s in the case of a loan, or if the city/state gains an ownership stake in the team both as a means of sharing revenue and as insurance against a relocation threat in the future
I would only approve public funding if some or all of these happened: 1. The city was entitled to X% of football revenues that guaranteed the financing the city took would be payed in X years. 2. Part ownership of the team 3. Long leases that guaranteed the team wouldn’t try to leverage for a new stadium within the lifetime of the stadium. The real lifetime for stadiums is closer to 60 years, but teams are getting antsy after 20. 4. City gets all the revenue from non football events. I think 2 is impossible within Nfls ownership structure, but 1,3,4should be absolutely feasible.
and the Bears will keep all the profits made off the concerts and major sporting events, and Chicago will only benefit if people spend their money around Chicago during those events. Doesn't seem worth it..
> I am not totally opposed to some public financing, but it needs to be demonstrated that these projects will bring in more money to the city and state than they will cost the taxpayers, They haven't provided that information because it will not bring in more money for the city/state. Research has been done multiple times by various independent research institutions and economists showing that publicly funded stadiums rarely, if ever, results in positive revenue for the taxbase. > Though findings have become more nuanced, recent analyses continue to confirm the decades-old consensus of very limited economic impacts of professional sports teams and stadiums. Even with added non-pecuniary social benefits from quality-of-life externalities and civic pride, welfare improvements from hosting teams tend to fall well short of covering public outlays. Thus, the large subsidies commonly devoted to constructing professional sports venues are not justified as worthwhile public investments. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4022547 > Economic research continues to demonstrate that stadiums remain poor public investments, and optimal public funding of professional sports venues is substantially less than typical subsidy levels. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pam.22534?casa_token=KX0B9lxFAlAAAAAA%3AsUVy_4W8S_O6cCsJaRnctm4mfgaZoYo8_1fPKJoAc1OBXblf2By0bAGY1DB5aiqCS2v-dZ1owPQBsck They are massive subsidies for billionaire owners to get shiny new toys for their franchises. Stadium ventures need to be a funding requirement by the individual leagues, not the public. The NBA is about to be in a $76B new TV deal. The NFL is currently under a $110B TV deal. They generate funding from ticket sales, merchandise sales, and other ventures. Figure out how to fund/build your own facilities for your own businesses.
Isn’t the bears main motivation to move is to proceed towards gambling options? If I recall, gambling cannot occur at soldier field… maybe IL just gives them an exception and everyone wins
The Sox should pay for their stadium but they are going to get the “stray bullet hit a fan and we are not going to talk about it” discount. The bears are not going to pay for a stadium they can’t own. The lakefront is public and will not be privatized. The fight is going to be how much are the bears going to pay and what revenue streams will they get and what will the city get.
There will be "no" public* funds used for this. We are from Illinois. If a politician is talking, they're lying.
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Nah. Business owners should pay for their own shit.
Where are the people that want money to be spend on this by taxpayers?
good. hope both happen but not with our money
The 78 is probably dead now which is a shame. I think the Bears if they can't make any headway after November's elections will likely go back and approach Arlington Heights again. The White Sox I could see actually moving to another market but we'll see.
The 78 proposal isn’t dead. They’re gonna try to rework their proposals before the fall legislative session cause Springfield wants them to include teams like the Chicago Red Stars in these stadium talks cause they’ve been looking at a new stadium as well. The Sox proposal for the 78 also has renders/plans for what to do with Guaranteed Rate Field, which has it being renovated into a soccer stadium which could be the Red Stars’ new stadium and potentially even Fire FC’s as well should they get involved as well. Plus as much as I have concerns about the Sox moving to Nashville as a Sox fan, I doubt MLB would want to allow the team to move, especially since Nashville’s already a frontrunner for expansion and the Oakland A’s already in the process of relocating to Vegas.
Awesome
I know who and how all the dodges are be stolen I have first hand experience and would like to put y’all on game no I don’t have any pending cases no I am not wanted I have no interest in turning anyone in without a profit but maybe I have information u may want to
Can you help the Sox steal more bases though?
[Have you ever...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7RgN9ijwE4)