Silvy: Illinois needs to start competing to keep the Bears in the state
The clock is winding down, and it’s time to run the hurry-up offense. The favorite is losing and has played a sloppy game, but they can salvage everything if they execute down the stretch.
This scenario isn’t happening on the football field, but it’s over the building of a field. It’s a high-stakes game of poker between the Bears and the state of Illinois over a new, beautiful, modern home in Arlington Heights. It’s a game where both players should come away winners. The Bears get to break ground on land that they own, and the state can brag it didn’t hand out a single dollar of state taxpayers’ money. Not a cent. It makes all the sense in the world.
Yet downstate lawmakers haven’t moved an inch for a variety of reasons, none of which is good enough to not get this done immediately. And because of this, Illinois has allowed the state of Indiana to enter the game as a real player. It never should’ve come to this.
Let’s back up for a minute. I am not a political reporter. I get to play in the toy department daily as I rant and rave about sports. I know what I don’t know.
That said, I was a young reporter on the Bears beat 30 years ago and covered the Soldier Field rebuild from start to finish. I know and understand the process. Recently, my teammate John Jurkovic brought an old newspaper into the studio from 1999. One of the top stories was about the price of the Soldier Field rebuild and how the city wanted to cut costs. It’s a good reminder of how we got here just 20-plus years after the project. Stop being short-sighted this time around and keep the Bears in Illinois for the long haul.
Let me be clear, the Bears want to stay in state. The best financial deal, and it’s not even close, is in the Hoosier state. The best site is Arlington Heights, land that many believe could be one of the top sites in the NFL to build a stadium and entertainment district. The team is simply asking for infrastructure changes to support this scale of project and property tax certainty.
Before you cry foul, the local Arlington Heights government wants to give them the certainty as they know this project would bring back that money to the community tenfold. The state is simply standing in the way, making this an unnecessary political game of chicken. In the process, Springfield could lose that for Arlington Heights and thousands of jobs for Illinois residents in this mega project. It’s easy to make it look like the big bad Bears are being greedy. It simply isn’t true in this case.
I asked one friend involved in politics about why Indiana is adamant about making a deal while Illinois takes one delay of game after another. Simply put, Indiana puts deal-making first and figures out the politics second, while Illinois is all about politics first, and only then is it looking to make a deal.
Last fall, the Bears went downstate to get their case heard. Our government didn’t even put it on the docket. One person told me that lawmakers didn’t think the Bears played the lobby game correctly. Maybe that’s because they play the football game. It shouldn’t be this difficult.
Indiana has one legislative session a year, and it wraps up at the end of the month. By then lawmakers could have final approval for the stadium in northwest Indiana. At that time, the Bears will ask Illinois to improve infrastructure and approve tax certainty negotiations, because they want to be here. If Illinois balks, the Bears could walk. This is no longer a leverage play.
Will I bet on that happening? Not quite yet. The Bears have changed stadium sites as much as they used to change quarterbacks. And that too has frustrated Illinois lawmakers, but frustration is no excuse for not making a deal that makes sense for the team and the state.
It’s time for Illinois complete their version of Caleb Williams to Cole Kmet play. It’s fourth down, and the clock is ticking. If not, we may be singing, “you’re the joy and pride of the NWI, Chicago Bears, bear down.”
• Marc Silverman shares his opinions on the Bears weekly for Shaw Local. Tune in and listen to the “Waddle & Silvy” show weekdays from 2 to 6 p.m. on ESPN 1000.