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We could be seeing the end of an era unfold in real time as a legacy NFL franchise with a century of history in its signature American city is moving forward with plans to leave town: The Bears are advancing their stadium development project in Hammond, Indiana.
The team announced Friday afternoon that it has taken this significant step toward pulling up stakes from Chicago and even the state of Illinois.
The Bears’ board of directors met on Thursday, into the evening, and voted to advance the stadium development project in Hammond, Indiana — with an exact stadium site to be selected.
“We believe a world-class stadium project in Hammond 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,” Bears Chairman George H. McCaskey and CEO Kevin Warren said in a statement.
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“It will bring Chicagoland together and deliver new opportunities to its residents and businesses.”
This is the first time the team’s board has voted on a stadium site. So this is notable and significant, but an NFL source told Fox News there is a chance Illinois might still be able to convince the team to stay in the state. Those chances were characterized as requiring “a Hail Mary” political effort.
And this: That Hail Mary, even if it were to work, will still move the club out of Chicago with the only site in Illinois as a likely landing spot being in Arlington Heights, Ill.
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The NFL has been meeting with both the Bears and officials from both Illinois and Indiana in the last six months, and the league’s Stadium Committee is aware of the latest decision by the club.
“The club has kept the stadium committee and league office apprised of all developments,” NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy told ESPN in a statement.
The NFL apparently has no stated qualms about the Bears moving out of Chicago. The New York Giants moved out of New York and across state lines to New Jersey. They were followed by the New York Jets.
The Raiders left Oakland for Los Angeles, then left Los Angeles, and are now in Las Vegas. The Rams, similarly, left Los Angeles for St. Louis, then returned to L.A.
And the St. Louis Cardinals are now the Arizona Cardinals.
New, shiny, money-producing stadiums have a way of luring NFL teams.
Chicago, and to a lesser degree, Illinois has not exactly been keen on helping the Bears build a new, shiny, money-producing stadium within their borders.
A “megaprojects” bill died in the Illinois senate last Sunday. The proposal would have allowed the Bears to negotiate payments in lieu of paying property taxes on the Arlington Heights, Illinois, property they currently own.
At 11 p.m. Sunday, Illinois state Senator Bill Cunningham (D-Chicago) introduced the legislation that would allow Cook County cities with more than 70,000 residents (like Arlington Heights and Chicago) to create their own sports stadium authority. The Bears would have then paid for the construction of the new stadium, which the franchise has dedicated $2 billion in funding toward.
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The bill would have given the team property tax certainty but it did not succeed.
Indiana passed similar legislation for the Bears in February, and the bill was signed into law by Governor Mike Braun.
So as it stands now, Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson and J.B. Pritzker look, well, pretty bad.
They are the politicians who have either through inaction or poor planning failed to push through legislation to help keep the Bears, first, in Chicago, and secondly, in the state at all.
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They could quite possibly go down as the politicians who oversaw the departure of a franchise founded in Illinois in 1920 that was moved to Chicago by Pro Football Hall of Fame coach and owner George Halas in 1921.
Here we are over a century later, and the Bears have one foot out the door of both Chicago and Illinois.
FOLLOW ARMANDO SALGUERO ON X: @ARMANDOSALGUERO
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