The 178-year-old Chicago Tribune newspaper delivered a scathing attack on the Chicago Bears’ long-running efforts to build a new stadium, describing the franchise’s pursuit of a new home as an “insane saga.”
The newspaper argued, in a sharply worded editorial following the latest twist in the process, that what was once billed as a transformational project has instead become a sprawling public fight, with each new development drawing fresh criticism of how the Bears have handled the search for a stadium solution.
The verdict landed the same day the Bears’ Board of Directors voted to advance their stadium development in Hammond, Indiana, moving the franchise one decisive step closer to fleeing Chicago and crossing state lines.
Bears Stadium Drama Draws Fierce Tribune Editorial Fire
The Tribune editorial board aimed its harshest criticism at Illinois’ political leadership, calling the inability to mount a competing offer “a stinging indictment of this state’s politicians,” in the Tribune Editorial Board editorial published on June 5.
With Gov. JB Pritzker, House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch and Senate President Don Harmon all failing to unify around a solution, the editorial board concluded the state’s leaders “chose the worst of all worlds: Profess to want a deal with the Bears, but decline to meet their consistently stated price.”
The Tribune acknowledged that the Bears’ “political miscalculations” were well-documented â but reserved most of its editorial artillery for the politicians who never picked a lane.
“What we can conclude without equivocation is that Illinois has suffered a real black eye from this process,” the editorial stated. “There will be damage. That much already is assured.”
The editorial invoked a 1988 parallel, when Republican Gov. Jim Thompson hammered out a deal with Democratic leaders to keep the Chicago White Sox from fleeing to Florida. The Bears’ situation demanded the same resolve â and got none of it, the newspaper said.
The editorial warned Chicagoans they will need to get used to “Bear Down, Hammond Bears,” as Illinois’ reputation for getting big things done takes a major hit.
Bears Hammond Vote Caps 5-Year Stadium Odyssey
The Bears’ Board of Directors voted Thursday to advance the Hammond, Indiana, plan, ESPN‘s Adam Schefter reported. One source told Schefter the outcome amounts to a done deal “barring anything very strange.”
The franchise released a statement from Chairman George H. McCaskey and President and CEO Kevin Warren describing a “world-class stadium project in Hammond” that would “transform the region,” connecting northwest Indiana to the South Side of Chicago.
The road to Hammond ran through years of dead ends. The Bears purchased 326 acres in Arlington Heights for $197.2 million in February 2023, proposing a $5 billion domed stadium on the former racetrack site, according to a FOX 32 Chicago report by correspondent Chris Kwiecinski. A lakefront Chicago plan unveiled in April 2024 collapsed after Pritzker called it a “non-starter.” By May 2026, the Bears declared they had “exhausted every opportunity” to remain in Chicago.
Indiana passed Senate Bill 27 in February, creating a Northwest Indiana stadium authority and dangling roughly $1 billion in tax revenue to seal the deal.
Arlington Heights Mayor Jim Tinaglia accepted the news with measured disappointment, saying the 326-acre property “remains a highly viable redevelopment site,” according to an NBC Chicago report by Alex Dvorak.
Illinois leaders signaled they remain open to re-engagement, but after the spring session’s collapse and the now-steeper three-fifths majority threshold required for passage outside regular session, that opening grows narrower by the day.
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