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Originally Posted by nomarandlee
Absolutely on all accounts. If the Bears want to build a new stadium south of McCormick Place or they want to build south of the Amtrak yards on Roosevelt etc. give them the blessing. Otherwise, it's time to bid farewell. The Bears had one shot in 2000 to get taxpayer help with a stadium and they obviously blew it in not foreseeing their own requirements 20 years on. They are the ones who knew they would be hemmed in on the lakefront. They knew they would have the smallest stadium in the league and they wanted it open air. A new stadium in A.H. will never have quite the cache or draw that the same stadium would have near the lakefront downtown.
And even though public tax financing will be DOA for the Bears in A.H. how have we not passed laws as a society against taxpayer financing of professional sports stadiums yet It's about damn time.
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Well said. Plus their private funding strategy won’t work. Seat licenses and league fees and a sponsorship just won’t go far enough. They need a ton of public funding and they won’t be getting it. More extensive demolition and replacement of soldier field or a new lakefront stadium seem like a better compromise despite the cost.
I guess I’m wrong on this, but I felt they’d be throwing away great access to centralized transit and a huge tourism market. The rebuttal was Bears fans are loyal, mostly in the suburbs and they don’t need to be in a downtown area. Maybe that’s true, but it still seems very limiting. I also wonder how it impacts cost. More people would be driving and paying insane parking fees and I’m sure ticket prices would still be high to pay for the stadium