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O’Donnell: Bears’ focus groups spark ire and dismay

THE STADIUM FOCUS OF THE BEARS remains horribly out of focus, if an insider's report concerning a recent public research initiative by the team is to be believed.

The Daily Herald has exclusively learned that “focus groups” conducted last week by the Bears and CSL International about a new stadium left many season-ticket holders in attendance dazed and deflated.

According to one, the first question asked by attendees was: “Are we talking about a stadium on the Chicago lakefront or in Arlington Heights or both?”

When the answer was, “Only Chicago,” the enthusiasm among many invitees reportedly began to drift away.

THAT WANING ZEST underwent further diminishment when CSL representatives overseeing the session informed that:

--- The current target capacity of the proposed Bears lakefront stadium is 62,000. That's significantly less than anticipated and below the bendable NFL rule about a 70,000-seat minimum to host a Super Bowl. Regardless of capacity, league chieftains are expected to throw Chicago at least one Super Bowl during the first decade of any new building — and that could be it for the rest of the 21st century.;

--- The phrase “personal seat licenses” (PSL) will be replaced by “memberships.” But all seats in the new stadium will require a “membership” — with no hold back of some for single-game sales. Prices of memberships will range from $1,000 for “corners in the back of the end zone upward to $200,000 for field level.”;

--- The CSL discussion guides had no coherent response to questions concerning expanded parking capacity at the proposed new lakeside play palace. Top concerns of season-ticket holders have included annual uncertainty about their quests to secure parking to tailgate in prime lots around Soldier Field and travel times to and from games. Almost all must roll the parking-permit dice in an annual lottery.

THE DECISION OF GEORGE MCCASKEY AND THE BEARS to enlist CSL — a Texas-based consulting firm with satellite offices in San Francisco, Minneapolis and New York — to try and restart their stalled stadium project was perceived as a desperation move in some informed quarters.

CSL was founded more than 30 years ago by convention, sports and leisure veteran Bill Rhoda. Among its many clients over the years, according to a report by the state of Minnesota, were the Vikings, circa 2010.

That was when current Bears president Kevin Warren was serving as a wing man to Vikings lobbying and community affairs bulldog Lester Bagley.

Bagley and Mark Dayton — then about to be elected governor of Minnesota — were the critical political-football tandem that got the new U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis done.

ACCORDING TO PAST CORPORATE STATEMENTS, CSL and its consultants “provide in-depth information, creative solutions to underlying issues, a thorough analysis of financial implications, and various measurements of risk and return surrounding alternative courses of action.”

In other words, they gather data, refine it and attempt to push forward an organization's attempt to maximize utilization of external — read “public” — monies.

The company also provides “Negotiation Services” and “Economic Impact Analyses.”

Rhoda's core firm was purchased by Legends Global Planning in 2011. He is currently listed as No. 4 on that corporate vertical as “President, Global Planning.”

IT IS BELIEVED THAT approximately 140 Bears season-ticket holders were selected to participate in 10 focus groups. They were held in Schaumburg and Chicago. Targeted time was 90 minutes.

Invitees were asked to sign nondisclosure agreements and were later told they would receive Bears T-shirts with their names on the back as compensation.

(Picture postcards from Northerly Island and chunks of runway from the old Meigs Field apparently weren't available.)

IN THEORY, NEW PERSPECTIVES ACQUIRED and favorable spin generated will enable McCaskey, Warren and all to reload in their markedly uphill attempt to secure public funding and state and local approval to build a new stadium on a choice lakefront site south of Soldier Field.

Still deep in a Tampa-1 cover to stymie any effort would be Friends of the Parks, a historically aggressive and resourced pro publica association determined to preserve Chicago's lakefront aesthetic.

The pie-in-the-sky naiveté from Bears HQ in Lake Forest has already been dubbed “Warren's Folly.”

IN A FINAL HUNK OF HALAS HALL ABSURDIA, focus group participants were told that while Soldier Field would be torn down, its iconic colonnades would be preserved.

They would then serve as the nostalgic centerpieces of a game-day “park.” That would be where those unable to get into the adjacent new Bears field could pay $20 to listen to live music, dodge roughhousing children and watch the nearby live NFL game on big video screens.

ONE FLUSTERED FOCUS OBSERVER later said:

“If Ted Phillips were still president of the Bears, there would have been shovels in the ground at Arlington Park sixteen months ago and we would be looking at a sensational season opener as early as September 2025.

“Now, instead, we're getting T-shirts with our names on our backs and little cost or parking certainty for us. I'm surprised they didn't give us orange-and-blue candles to light.”

Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Thursday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.

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