Gov. JB Pritzker says he updated NFL commissioner as Arlington Heights and Indiana sites remain at forefront

With days left until a deadline to pass legislation this spring, Gov. JB Pritzker acknowledged he had recently spoken with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and maintained that the Bears and NFL are only considering a new stadium in Arlington Heights or Indiana — not Chicago. 

“It was good. It was short. I wanted to let him know and keep him up to date on what was happening,” Pritzker said of his conversation with the commissioner. “I will say that it’s clear from the statements by the Bears and statements by the NFL that there really are only two places that the Bears are considering having their stadium going forward, and that’s either in the state of Indiana or in Arlington Heights.”

The comments came amid a public back-and-forth between Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson as the first-term mayor has made a last-minute effort to keep the team in the city.

Johnson on Tuesday attributed the “disconnect” with the governor on the stadium issue to the two coming from “different upbringings,” pointing to the governor’s billionaire status. 

“I’m not a billionaire. I’m not the heir of billions of dollars. I’m a working-class brother that was teaching middle school a handful of years ago,” Johnson said Tuesday on The Matt McGill Show on WVON-AM 1690. “My motivation to make sure that a corporation keeps jobs in Chicago is so that families don’t have to struggle like my family did. And so, yes, that’s going to come across as a little more provocative, because what’s at stake for him is — it’s not the same as what’s at stake for me.”

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Pritzker shot back Wednesday that the disagreement was “about our values” and that he had “focused on the working class, the middle class and people most vulnerable throughout my career.”

“Do we want to spend $2.5 billion of taxpayer dollars on the Chicago Bears, or do we want to spend a lot less than that in order to keep the Chicago Bears in Illinois?” Pritzker asked, comparing a plan Johnson backed in 2024 to build a domed stadium next to Soldier Field that went nowhere and the team’s plans to build on the former Arlington Park racetrack site in Arlington Heights.

Illinois lawmakers face a May 31 deadline to advance a stadium tax proposal during the current spring session — one of many pieces of unfinished business they’ll address in the coming days, including the state budget for the upcoming year.

Pritzker’s conversation with Goodell wasn’t his first, records obtained by the Tribune show. The governor’s January calendar showed two scheduled conversations with the commissioner, a day before and two days after the Bears’ Jan. 10 playoff game against the Green Bay Packers.

On Feb. 20, a day after Pritzker said he was “surprised, dismayed, very disappointed” by the Bears putting out a statement praising Indiana’s proposal to lure the team across state lines, the governor responded to a text message from Goodell with a proposed statement on the stadium drama, according to text messages obtained through an open records request.

“The simplest statement would be: ‘We continue to work with Illinois leadership and appreciate the progress that is being made,'” Pritzker wrote, wording that Bears President and CEO Kevin Warren matched in a statement of his own nearly word for word.

“Hopefully you have seen the statement that Kevin made. Word for word. Hope this helps,” the commissioner wrote.

Pritzker replied: “Helps a lot. We are pencils up and working (with) Bears. Have not yet spoken with legislative leaders but sent them the article. But we are glad to see the statement.”

Earlier this week, Pritzker expressed optimism that both chambers would pass a so-called megaprojects bill before the legislative session closes, while also knocking Johnson for having “no plan” to keep the team in Chicago. The Johnson administration has disputed that characterization. 

The governor on Wednesday said he hadn’t spoken with Johnson since the mayor made those remarks, but maintained the two remain friends.

The Bears have for years focused on the former Arlington International Racecourse site in Arlington Heights, which the team purchased in early 2023. More recently, the team has said it is also considering a site in Hammond, Indiana, after Hoosier lawmakers and the governor of Indiana passed legislation earlier this year to build a stadium across the border, though more work remains to be done before that site could become a reality.

Two years ago, the Bears and Johnson laid out elaborate plans for a new publicly owned domed stadium near Soldier Field, where the team currently plays. Those plans fell flat in Springfield, and the prospect of the Bears staying in Chicago quickly dimmed as no new widely supported proposals have emerged publicly since. 

In the ongoing Illinois legislative efforts, the Bears are seeking some $855 million in infrastructure funding, as well as certainty over how much the team would have to pay in property taxes for the next 40 years for building on the Arlington Heights site. Lawmakers are trying to balance those concerns as the public has pushed back about giving away benefits to a multibillion-dollar sports franchise.

Pritzker at an earlier event on Tuesday said “much of the infrastructure that’s being talked about, that people are calling infrastructure for the Bears, is actually infrastructure for the region around Arlington Heights.”

“I know people are trying to say, oh, it’s some giveaway to the Bears. Certainly, some of this is an incentive for the Bears, and is relevant only to a stadium, but also much of it is relevant to just having good traffic flow like we need everywhere, building bridges, making sure we have roads that make sense for people, so they can get to the grocery store, get to the doctor’s office, get home, at night safely,” he said.

The state House passed a so-called megaprojects bill last month that would allow the Bears to make special payments to local governments in lieu of higher property taxes, an effort to keep the team in Illinois rather than losing it to Indiana. But the legislation has sat in the Senate for several weeks amid concerns over whether its property tax relief provisions would be workable.

Lawmakers are expected to continue working on the megaprojects legislation in the coming days.

“I’m hopeful that the people who want to tank the bill are not successful,” Pritzker said Wednesday. 

Tribune reporter Jeremy Gorner contributed.