Arlington Heights Bears? Not likely, but not a tragedy, either.
“They can use the name Arlington Heights Bears, but they’ll never use the name of Chicago if I’m the mayor.” — Richard J. Daley, April 15, 1975
The Chicago Bears have put in a bid for Arlington International Racecourse, which is up for sale. “It’s our obligation to explore every possible option to ensure we’re doing what’s best for our organization and its future,” said team President and CEO Ted Phillips.
But fans shouldn’t bet that a relocation to Arlington Heights will happen. One recurrent feature of professional sports in Chicago is that teams often talk about moving — and rarely do it. Most of these trial balloons soon deflate.
The Bears didn’t take up residence at Soldier Field until 1971 after decades prowling Wrigley Field. Soon, founder and owner George Halas was eyeing Elk Grove Village and Arlington Heights as possible homes. The owners later talked about playing home games at Notre Dame Stadium, or moving into new digs in Hoffman Estates or Waukegan.
The Bears are hardly the first franchise to look for greener pasture. In 1985, when the Cubs organization — then owned by Tribune Co., which also owned this newspaper — was pushing to be allowed to play night games at Wrigley, team President Dallas Green expressed interest in building a new venue in Schaumburg.
In 2013, Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts threatened to vacate the Friendly Confines if he didn’t get approval for a giant video screen. (He eventually got a slightly smaller one.) In 1988, White Sox owners Jerry Reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn announced they would take the team to St. Petersburg, Florida, unless the state of Illinois agreed to finance a new stadium, which it did.
So any talk of migration may be nothing more than a misdirection play. The Bears owners got a great deal on the 2002 renovation of Soldier Field, which we opposed for vandalizing a war memorial for the fallen soldiers of World War I — and for putting taxpayers on the hook for $432 million.
This obligation came about even though Mayor Richard M. Daley had once declared, “I remain absolutely confident that taxpayers are not at risk for any part of this project.” A few years later, Mayor Rahm Emanuel fumed at the cost: “I don’t want the taxpayers of the city of Chicago to be treated as if they’re just an ATM.”
It was a bad investment, on top of being an ugly combination of old and new architecture. “That facility was technically and economically obsolete before the first kickoff,” University of Chicago economist Allen Sanderson says.
The Arlington Heights property, which covers 326 acres, has all sorts of potential uses. The Bears owners are certainly entitled to consider buying it for a new stadium close to major expressways and suburban fans, with lots of parking.
The important thing is that the city should not let the Bears executives deploy this scenario to extort more financial help from taxpayers. “It’s hard to imagine a worse investment of public funds for the city than sweetening the current lease,” says Sanderson. But neither should the fiscally strapped state government be conned into granting tax breaks or other incentives to facilitate a deal that should be left to the private sector.
A relocation would not be a tragedy for the people of Chicago. The majority of Chicagoans almost never attend a Bears game in person, and the economic benefits of the 10 games a year the team plays there are negligible. If the team decamped from Soldier Field, it would open up all sorts of inviting possibilities for the use of that priceless slice of the lakefront.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot should let the owners know that they are welcome to stay and they are welcome to leave. When it comes to protecting the interests of taxpayers, she should remember the old football cheer: Hold that line.