Jim O'Donnell: Will the new Chicago casino trim the chances of the Bears moving to Arlington Heights?

ONE YEAR AGO THIS WEEK, the headline atop The Daily Herald sports & media column said:

"It's time for George S. Halas Stadium at Arlington Park."

And the wonderland derby was on.

Seven months later, days after the 2021 live racing puppeteers at AP shut down, the Bears and Churchill Downs Inc. announced a "Purchase & Sale Agreement" (PSA) framed within the mystical amount of $197.2 million.

That's a great number - roughly $600K per acre for the 326-acre tract.

It allowed CDI and CEO Bunker Bill Carstanjen to appear crisply assertive in their pursuit of maxing out shareholder value for the Arlington land.

The PSA also made George McCaskey and Ted Phillips come across as unusually visioned in planning a broader future for their underperforming franchise.

The idea of a magnificent new stadium owned by the Bears replacing close to a century of live thoroughbreds at AP also stoked enough imaginations to placate almost all state, regional and local authorities.

Even if the entire arrangement was nothing more than words in the wind with no known guarantee of a nickel ever changing any hands.

BUT NOW, TWELVE MONTHS after the strange magic began, a whole lot of question abound.

And, for public consumption, few irrefutable answers are available.

Carstanjen will take yet another step toward finessing the matter Thursday morning when he hosts CDI's 2021 fourth-quarter earnings call.

The corporation's gains for the final three months of 2021 will be impressive.

Carstanjen's new, substantive comments on the Bears and Arlington Park will be precise and as fresh as week-old stable droppings.

While the Bears continue their extended "due diligence" regarding the possible purchase, Carstanjen has bought CDI a most valuable commodity on the volatile gaming landscape in Illinois.

And that's time.

GIVEN THE ATOMIC UNDERPINNINGS of further expansion of legalized gambling in the state, time can be monetized into wondrous things elsewhere for the profit baggers at CDI.

Earlier this week, less than six months after pounding what may be the final dagger into the heart of Arlington Park, Carstanjen and associates entered into an agreement to spend $2.5B on the purchase of a company called Peninsula Pacific Entertainment.

When finalized, CDI's new holdings will include casinos in New York and Iowa plus - please note - the Colonial Downs racetrack in Virginia.

Legally planted in Illinois with the massive pelt of Arlington on their buckskins, Carstanjen and Co. are now positioned to march their games of chance and profit through another state.

Of course, a "destination casino" is also on the drawing board for the new Churchill takeover plan in Virginia.

REGARDING THE CURRENT STATUS of the Bears and Arlington Park, the statements of McCaskey and Phillips at the January media conference following their team's minced-Matt 6-11 season continue to resonate.

Most intriguingly, they admitted that they were drawn into the bidding process on Arlington and, by implication, had not sought to participate.

Until stipulated otherwise, that would mean CDI and brokering agent CBRE let other potential bidders serve as dupes and adhere to stated guidelines in the process while allowing the Bears to be given special status.

Technically, nothing illegal and only to be remedied if one of the failed suitors can somehow successfully press and win a civil action.

But does it also suggest that CDI wanted the Bears banner involved in the destruction of Arlington Park as subterfuge while the Kentucky corporation sought to maintain nimbleness and time involving other holdings in Illinois?

THEN THERE WERE the executive words of Phillips and McCaskey in January.

About AP, Philips said: "We haven't even begun to envision what it could be ... (But if) we don't close on the land, then all of that vision won't come to fruition."

Added McCaskey: "All we're doing is exploring the property's potential. We don't even own the property yet."

Oh.

Not exactly the fire and pigskin with which a Stan Kroenke or Jerry Jones would be bursting with into a multibillion dollar new stadium and mixed-use development dynamic.

SINCE THE BEARS MADE their bid official on June 17, there was the widespread presumption by more sophisticated observers that minority partner Pat Ryan must be playing a primary role in the team's maneuvering.

Now, to no one's surprise, it remains obvious that the big dog at the intersection of Illinois sports and gaming is still Neil Bluhm.

Besides being CDI's "threshold partner" in the fabulously profitable Rivers Casino in Des Plaines, Bluhm is also a major force in two of the five finalists for the license to operate a casino in the city of Chicago.

Neither initiative currently involves Churchill, which is curious, since any Chicago casino is certain to cannibalize business from Des Plaines/Rivers.

(Deeper thinkers say that could mean CDI will be cashing out entirely in Illinois much sooner than later. The company and its partners grossed $458M pretaxes in Des Plaines last year; within two years of its opening, the Chicago temple is expected to gross close to $1B.)

SOME SAY THAT for assorted reasons - including a family link to Mayor Lori Lightfoot that extends back more than 35 years - a Bluhm-affiliated entry is 1-to-9 (an overwhelming favorite) to get the Chicago license.

Most likely site would be "The 78." That's the 62-acre parcel in the South Loop bordered by West Roosevelt, South Clark, 16th Street and the east bank of the Chicago River.

But would that location also serve "a higher and better use" as the home of a new Bears stadium within city limits?

And would Arlington Heights and the flats of Arlington Park once again be left standing at a bare altar?

ON SEPT. 30, 2021 - one day after the announcement of the CDI/Bears PSA - an Insouciant projected the chances of the McMunchkins playing on the site of the old Arlington Park by the 2027 NFL season at "97%."

Three months later, that number was publicly down to a tepid "89%."

Today, given the swirl, it dips to 57%.

There is something in the air.

Few outside of an extremely constricted Louisville-to-Chicago pipeline are aware of all of its possible ramifications.

Because, as has been stated since the Bears' "PSA From Heaven" was announced five months ago, if team representatives, the Bluhms and the Lightfoot administration are in the process of plotting with greased cunning, Euclid Avenue, we have a problem.

• Jim O'Donnell's Sports & Media column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.