The recent Ryan Field editorial states “this moment [should] mark a formal end to the grousing over this stadium, which is here to stay,” (“New Trier vs. Evanston at a mint Ryan Field? What a tantalizing fall prospect,” May 28).
I agree, and the Chicago Stars, Evanston and Wilmette should vigorously re-engage in good faith discussions about use of the facility for a defined, multi-year period starting in 2027. The Stars can be both a sporting and community asset for the North Shore.
If the Stars use temporary, artificial turf Martin Stadium next year, you will have a striking visual of high school/college male football players enjoying new, natural grass Ryan Field while professional female soccer players endure separate and unequal facilities. Is this truly desirable in Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky’s beloved, progressive Evanston?
When the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team’s collective bargaining agreement expressly prohibits players from playing on turf due to injury potential, how can the Stars compete for world-class talent in a league with unrestricted free agency and no draft?
The on-field challenges of the Stars are partly tied to inferior, uncertain and poorly located stadium facilities like their former home, the taxpayer funded boondoggle, SeatGeek Stadium in Bridgeview.
As a village trustee in neighboring Riverwoods, I appreciate the Stars’ low-impact reuse of a former Walgreens property in Bannockburn for their new, privately developed training facility which opens next year.
If the Stars played at natural grass Soldier Field for a few years until a purpose-built soccer stadium like the one in Kansas City is built, you would simply re-create a problem that the Chicago Sky had until recently of training facilities being located too far away from their stadium.
The 2024 Wilmette and Evanston intergovernmental agreement can be adapted to mitigate potential impacts from the fifteen Stars’ home games a year. Presently, average attendance of a Stars game is below that of a concert or Northwestern football game.
The San Diego Wave’s agreement with San Diego State University for the use of Snapdragon Stadium should be obtained through a public records request. This can serve as a useful point of comparison for the potential negotiation of Evanston-related issues such as property taxes and other payments.
In their March message, the Stars correctly emphasized civic unity. Robust community engagement from Laura Ricketts down to the players and staff can show that the Stars will be responsible neighbors at Ryan Field.
— Andrew Eastmond, Riverwoods
New owners
It is time the Chicago Bears have an owner who can financially afford to build and own its own stadium. It would be great to work a deal where the city and state would be partners allowing a facility to be built in Chicago with access to McCormick Place and all of Chicago’s downtown hotels, attractions and restaurants. Everyone wins. We just need to remove the poor McCaskeys from the equation.
I read once. “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die.”
Surely there is a billionaire who can rescue our beloved Bears from the hapless McCaskey clan to be the new owner and build the grandest sports venue in the United States, if not the world.
— Gary L. Hynes, Wilmette
No mystery
Though it’s been consistently presented as mysterious, where the new Bears stadium is going has been obvious for years.
It’s important to understand upfront that this is not your grandfather’s NFL. The world’s most valuable professional sports league has for decades gotten an increasingly smaller proportion of its revenue from tickets, concessions and other local sources. In fact, only the Dallas Cowboys make more locally than they do nationally. To accomplish that, they purpose built what I call “Jerry World,” a behemoth sitting between Fort Worth and Dallas, operating as a giant money vacuum to reap the rewards of Texans’ notorious appetite for football.
But Dallas is very much an outlier. For every other franchise, the most valuable lever an owner actually controls is in what they can build and own around the stadium. The Cubs figured this out at Wrigley Field. The Bulls and Blackhawks are doing it right now with the $7 billion development rising around the United Center. The stadium is just the anchor; the real money is the land.
Which brings us to the Bears, and to the one fact that explains everything: The McCaskeys aren’t rich the way other NFL owners are rich. Their fortune is the team and brand. They can’t write a Walton-sized check and never could. So that turns the whole question into a single test: Can the Bears own and capture the value they create around the stadium? And how much public investment and subsidy (what they charmingly refer to as “tax certainty”) should anyone provide to get around 70,000 people in town for nine games a season, when it’s going to benefit the team’s bottom line first and foremost?
Run every option through that test and the answer was never in doubt. The lakefront is off-limits to development; the Lakefront Protection Ordinance is what killed the Lucas Museum on the exact parcel the Bears initially proposed, where they’d rent from the city and own nothing. The Michael Reese and other sites were developable, but somebody else owned the land and would have pocketed the upside. Indiana is dangling a free stadium on an isolated slag dump — a prospective building with absolutely nothing around it worth owning.
And then there’s Arlington Heights: 326 acres the Bears already own and is dead simple to repurpose. No demons here, no magic, no mystery. Just the inevitable grind of economic forces and frustrating leverage games between private and public interests.
— Phil Nicodemus, Chicago
Hoosier Bears
The Bears moving to Arlington Heights so close to O’Hare airport will surely be a traffic nightmare. Moving the Bears to Hammond, Indiana might not be a bad idea regardless of what Maria Pappas thinks. It’s right next door to Chicago and it will bring lots of development to Northwest Indiana. It’s more a blue collar working man’s neighborhood and it might even help the South Side of Chicago. The Hoosier Bears has a nice ring to it. Who needs more tax breaks for the billionaires?
— Andrew Kachiroubas, Chicago
The right decision
While I can understand the passion of Bears’ fans who desperately want their team to remain in Illinois, I do believe the Illinois General Assembly made the right decision not to provide massive tax breaks to Arlington Heights to keep the Bears in our state. Let’s face it, while Illinois’ economic condition has improved, the state still faces some major financial issues, some far more important than helping the Bears. Also, from a purely economic perspective, a football stadium doesn’t make sense. The vast majority of attendees at NFL football games come from the Chicago area. The Bears play eight regular season games and two pre-season games, so there is not a huge opportunity to generate revenue for the city or state. Therefore, there should be more funds provided from private investors; however, annual cash flow is not that attractive as most money is made when the franchise is sold, and the McCaskeys have shown no desire to sell. The primary drawback to Hammond, Indiana is it’s not easy to reach from many parts of the Chicago area. Emotional appeals may still cause the Illinois legislature to change its mind, which in my opinion would be a mistake.
— Dan Schuchardt, Wheaton
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