Bears Stadium Update - New Information Compiled
It's been a few days since my last update, but significant developments warrant a full breakdown. Let me lay out the documented facts, explain what they mean, and give you my read on where this ends up.
The Illinois Situation: What's Actually Happening
HB910 remains parked in the Senate. It has received one of three required readings. The Senate's lead sponsor, Bill Cunningham, publicly acknowledged last week that May 31 "may come and go without a final answer." That's the bill's own co-sponsor lowering expectations on the record.
Before a Senate-amended version can become law, it has to clear several sequential hurdles:
- The Senate must pass an amended version
- That version returns to the House for a concurrence vote
- Speaker Welch will not call a bill without 60 confirmed Democratic votes — his self-imposed rule throughout this process
- The governor must sign it
Here's the structural problem that hasn't been solved in four weeks of Senate control: the provisions that bought Buckner's 78-vote House coalition are the same provisions that make the bill unworkable for the Bears and their lenders. Strip them in the Senate and you lose House votes on concurrence. Keep them and the Bears can't get the financing they need. Cunningham knows this. He said publicly that finding a solution to the property tax relief problem is why the Senate didn't move the bill last week.
Infrastructure funding doesn't exist in any legislation. This isn't a minor detail — it's arguably the most important fact in this entire saga. The Bears have requested roughly $855 million in public infrastructure funding for roads, sewers, and utilities around the Arlington Heights site. That money is not in HB910. It is not in any other introduced bill. It has not been committed by the state in any form.
When asked about the surrounding municipalities demanding a seat at the table, Pritzker said "that's a conversation between those municipalities and the Bears." Those municipalities — the mayors of Palatine, Rolling Meadows, and Schaumburg — have said publicly they don't trust Bears-conducted studies and would require independent traffic analysis. Cunningham confirmed the state cannot commit $855 million in infrastructure spending without a traffic study. Traffic studies of this scale typically take months to complete. There isn't one.
The opposition coalition is real. The Illinois Federation of Teachers launched a dedicated calculator tool to quantify school funding losses under HB910. The Chicago Teachers Union president gave an on-record interview opposing the bill. Mayor Johnson went to Springfield for two days explicitly to lobby against it. Senator Willie Preston went on record calling the bill a non-starter. The Senate Progressive Caucus released a formal statement conditioning their support on progressive revenue measures.
Pritzker publicly said Johnson has "no plan" for keeping the Bears in Chicago. Johnson called out Pritzker's wealth and pushed back. These are Illinois's two senior Democrats publicly feuding over Bears strategy with eleven days left in session. That is not a coalition that passes complex bipartisan legislation under deadline pressure.
The Chicago Detour
Something worth understanding about the recent chaos: the Bears contacted Chicago in late April. The Bears say it was about Soldier Field lease parameters — standard planning for a franchise that plays there through 2033 regardless of where they build next. Chicago interpreted it as the Bears signaling openness to a lakefront reunion.
Johnson ran with it. He told Chicago-area legislators the Bears were still considering the city. Cunningham publicly confirmed this breathed new life into opposition from Chicago legislators. A source close to the Bears told NBC Chicago that Johnson's use of the conversation "appears to be another effort by the mayor to kill the bill that would keep the Bears in Illinois."
Whether that was Johnson's intent or a genuine misreading, the effect is the same: Chicago legislators now have cover to slow-walk a bill that would move the Bears to Arlington Heights. That cover doesn't go away before May 31.
The Environmental Hit Piece
The Chicago Tribune ran a piece on the Hammond site's environmental history the morning of the NFL owners meeting in Orlando. The piece was sourced partly from Arlington Heights Mayor Jim Tinaglia, who happens to have a professional and political interest in the Bears choosing his city.
The piece discussed biosolids capping on the Lost Marsh Golf Course. What it didn't mention: biosolids are a standard practice used at Winnemac Park, Horner Park, Maggie Daley Park, the 606 trail, and the Wilmette Golf Course, among many others. The actual stadium site sits across Calumet Avenue from the golf course, adjacent to Wolf Lake. The slag under the golf course is confirmed capped. The Bears have already conducted Phase II environmental testing on the actual construction parcels.
The timing — published the morning of the NFL owners meeting — is worth noting. The environmental facts in the piece were not new. The same information has been publicly available for months. Running it that morning suggests it was intended to influence the conversation happening in Orlando, not to inform the general public of something new.
Goodell's statement following the owners meeting did not address the Tribune article. He described both sites as viable and said he had spoken with Pritzker recently about the Illinois legislative process.
Indiana has several potential sites the Bears could have chosen if all they wanted was leverage. The focus on Hammond's Wolf Lake is there because they determined through dilligence that it's not an issue.
What Indiana Has Actually Done
Indiana Governor Mike Braun signed SB27 into law on February 26. The bill establishes the Northwest Indiana Stadium Authority, creates the bond issuance mechanism, authorizes zero property taxes for 40 years, provides a Bears purchase option at the end of that period for approximately $1, and commits $700 million in Toll Road-related infrastructure funding.
At a business event, Braun confirmed that Bears leadership met with him at the Governor's Residence "last week." While Illinois legislators were publicly feuding and the Senate bill sat untouched, the Bears were meeting with Indiana's governor privately.
Braun said he expects due diligence on the Hammond site to conclude in "about three or four weeks" — pointing to mid-June. He said he will be surprised if Illinois produces anything that competes with what Indiana has already enacted into law.
Hammond Mayor McDermott confirmed in a recent interview that roughly $700 million in infrastructure improvements are planned for the site, including a dedicated highway interchange from I-90 directly to stadium parking. On transit, a South Shore Line rail spur to the stadium site is actively being discussed with the Congressman representing the area, the city, and the state. Notably, a rail spur already exists from the South Shore Line toward the proposed stadium footprint — currently used by Ferro Chemical, which would be an obvious acquisition target as part of stadium development.
McDermott also confirmed what many people have asked about: the Bears would retain 100% of event revenue — concerts, Final Fours, boxing, whatever — under the Indiana lease structure. The state owns the building; the Bears operate it and keep everything it generates. This neutralizes one of the primary arguments for Arlington Heights, which was that building ownership would give the Bears full revenue capture.
The Fertitta Connection
Tilman Fertitta's bid to acquire Caesars Entertainment is progressing. The Financial Times reported that a roughly $5 billion debt financing package from a syndicate including Morgan Stanley is being assembled. The deal is described as several weeks away.
Why does this matter? The Horseshoe Hammond holds the gaming license for the Hammond area. Fertitta — who owns Golden Nugget, Landry's restaurant empire including Morton's Steakhouse and Del Frisco's, and has built sports-casino campus developments — would be a natural co-development partner for the Bears' entertainment district at Wolf Lake.
Braun's mid-June due diligence timeline coincides roughly with when the Fertitta-Caesars deal is expected to conclude. That alignment may or may not be coincidental. Either way, having one of the most experienced gaming-hospitality operators in the country as a potential development partner significantly strengthens the economic case for Hammond's entertainment district.
My Read on Where This Is Heading
This is analytical conclusion, not established fact — but it's grounded in everything above.
The document we keep being handed by the Illinois process is not the picture of a state that's closing a deal. It's the picture of a state that's building a political exit narrative.
The Bears have not delivered a traffic study for Arlington Heights despite years of ownership and Illinois legislators wouldn't trust it if they did and it costs less than a million to conduct. They are not actively lobbying Springfield to fix HB910. They met with Indiana's governor at his residence while the Illinois Senate sat idle. They have spent over $10 million on Hammond due diligence. Their Chairman walked the Wolf Lake site in person.
When you look at all of this through the lens of what leverage looks like versus what acquisition looks like, the behavior doesn't fit leverage. Organizations that use alternatives as leverage want those alternatives visible and threatening. They don't maintain coordinated silence across two states for over a year under legal NDAs. They don't spend $10 million on due diligence for a site they plan to use as a chip.
My thesis, which I've held since before most of this became public knowledge: Hammond is the destination. Indiana was never a stalking horse for Arlington Heights — it was, and remains, the leverage for Chicago. When Chicago didn't materialize, Hammond became the plan. Arlington Heights has been the decoy all along including for Chicago. The traffic study absence, the lack of engagement with Illinois legislators, the contact with Chicago that gave Johnson his ammunition — all of it is more consistent with a team setting Illinois up for a clean public failure than a team genuinely trying to make Arlington work.
HB910 may still pass. But my prediction is that it passes in a form the Bears cannot use — sufficient for the White Sox at the 14th Street rail yard and Bob Dunn's One Central project, but not for the Bears at Arlington Heights. Every Illinois politician gets to say they tried. The Bears say they couldn't get the financing. The finger-pointing begins. The Bears announce Hammond.
And Hammond, in the long run, turns out far better than most people are currently willing to believe.