Bears Board Votes to Advance Hammond Stadium Project, Edging Closer to Illinois Exit
The Chicago Bears' board of directors voted Thursday to advance a stadium development project in Hammond, Indiana, marking the franchise's first formal board vote on a stadium site and its most concrete step yet toward departing both Chicago and the state of Illinois. The team announced the decision Friday afternoon. An exact site within Hammond has not yet been selected.
Chairman George H. McCaskey and CEO Kevin Warren said in a statement that the club believes a Hammond stadium "will transform the region, connecting Northwest Indiana and the South Side of Chicago through the Loop and across the neighborhoods and suburbs stretching north of the city." The statement described the project as one that "will bring Chicagoland together and deliver new opportunities to its residents and businesses." Indiana Governor Mike Braun, who signed stadium-enabling legislation for the Bears into law in February, said he expects a decision on a potential move to Hammond within weeks. Indiana's bill passed in February; comparable legislation in Illinois failed. A so-called megaprojects bill died in the Illinois Senate, and a measure introduced at 11 p.m. Sunday by state Senator Bill Cunningham that would have allowed Cook County municipalities with populations above 70,000 to establish their own sports stadium authority also did not advance. That bill would have provided the Bears with property tax certainty on land they already own in Arlington Heights, Illinois - where the franchise has committed $2 billion toward construction of a new stadium.
The Bears have played in Chicago since 1921, when Pro Football Hall of Fame coach and owner George Halas relocated the franchise - originally founded in Illinois in 1920 - to the city. The NFL's Stadium Committee has been briefed on the board's decision. "The club has kept the stadium committee and league office apprised of all developments," NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy said in a statement to ESPN. A league source told Fox News that Illinois retains a theoretical path to keeping the team, but characterized the political effort required as a "Hail Mary" - and noted that the only viable in-state alternative to Hammond remains Arlington Heights, which would itself mean leaving Chicago.
Should the move proceed, the Bears would join a list of NFL franchises that have crossed municipal or state lines for new stadium arrangements, among them the Giants and Jets, who relocated from New York to New Jersey, and the Raiders, who left Oakland before eventually settling in Las Vegas. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, whose administrations were unable to deliver viable stadium legislation, now face the prospect of presiding over the departure of a franchise with more than a century of continuous presence in the city. No timeline for a final stadium site announcement in Hammond has been confirmed.
