Bears should fund their stadium without taxpayer support

There is no scenario in which taxpayers should have to pay for any aspect or portion of a stadium for the Bears. In fact, if the Bears don't want to play at Soldier Field, let's find a new franchise

By Ray Hanania

FREE/Sports Politics/Monday May 13, 2024

Sports has really changed over the past few generations. When I was young, going to a baseball or football game was very affordable.

That's because the sports teams weren't paying the outrageous contracts to get the best sports stars.

Sports competition used to be in person. We would go to the game and watch it. These days, athletes and sports organizations get alot of money from lucrative advertising deals in the millions.

A hotdog at Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs play costs $8. In fact, the last time I went to a game with my daughter and cousins, 6 people, it cost over $450 for food, parking and drinks.

You can imagine I don't go to the live games that often any more. But, I always enjoy the fact that they have preserved Wrigley Field. It reminds me of when I would go their as a child with my father in the 1960s.

Soldier Field, old and new, still remains an iconic image along Chicago’s lakefront. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania

We would also go to a few Bears games at Soldier Field. The stadium has been an iconic magnet for families and sports fans since 1924 and home to the Bears since 1971. It was renovated in 2023, and guess who paid for most of it? You bet. The taxpayers. The renovation was $632 million. Taxpayers covered $432 million.

The Bears want to build a new stadium, but honestly I love looking at and going to the existing stadium, even with the expansion back in 2003 that makes it look like a space ship. (Hey, I'm a 1950s baby boomer who grew up in Science Fiction and sports, by the way.)

After flirting several years with Arlington Heights, where the Bears own 326 acres of land, the Bears returned to Chicago proposing a multi-billion domed stadium.

The Illinois Sports Facilities Authority is currently using a 2 percent tax on hotel stays to pay off outstanding debts.

I like Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who is exploring ways to revive Chicago as a tourist attraction. Rising crime in Chicago that is spreading to the suburbs is making that difficult, but he seems to be doing it the right way. A new stadium, he says, will attract tourists from "outside of Chicago" -- mostly White suburbanites -- and will rely on them paying some of the costs.

But how much are we talking about? No one in government has any respect for the taxpayers.

Professional sports has huge respect for their athletes who receive outrageous contracts in the tens of millions. In fact, tens of millions doesn't even come close.

Here are the wages of some professional MLB baseball players according to Spotrac: Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Dodgers: $70 million; Max Scherzer, Texas Rangers: $43,333,333; Justin Verlander, Houston Astros: $43,333,333; Zach Wheeler, Philadelphia Phillies: $42 million; Aaron Judge, New York Yankees: $40 million; Jacob deGrom, Texas Rangers: $37 million; Gerrit Cole, New York Yankees: $36 million; Mike Trout, Los Angeles Angels: $35,541,667

The contracts are outrageous and similar to contracts in the NFL and other sports.

Sports used to be fun. Players could make money but the industry inspired young people. Boys who hoped to become athletes for their athletic achievements were motivated by the athletes.

But these days, athletes are being paid way too much and if anyone is aspiring to sports it's those driven by fame and fortune rather than athletic talent.

In fact, take the “athletic talent" out of the equation. It's not being driven by competition at all. It's being driven by economic competition.

And I argue the public is being ripped off.

Sports should be about the athletes AND the public but it's not. The public is taken for granted in this mandatory relationship. You can’t have sports without the fans. The public.

The sports stars get the cash, and the public is forced to accommodate them and put up with their wins and losses, not just as players but as public personalities.

Controversies about athletes are more common these days than news reporters about mobsters, the Chicago Outfit. And who is ripping off the public more these days but the athletes.

Only the wealthy seem to enjoy the actual get to enjoy the live games at the stadiums. You have to pay a fortune to get a season ticket to ensure a decent seating location. The pedestrians sit in the "nose-bleed" sections, which would better be described as the "wallet-bleed" section.

Greed has taken sports out of the lives of most Americans to the point where the saying, "as American as Mom, Baseball and Apple Pie."

Throw out the word "baseball" because it is far less American today that it ever was, even though the face of Benjamin Franklin, the One Hundred dollar bill, has replaced that of the little neighborhood kid.

You have to blame poor sports management to have allowed the sports industry to become so unreachable for most Americans.

Of course, sports players are not the only ones ripping off the public. Officers at the ASPCA, you know, that organization that puts sad looking dog faces on TV begging you to send them $19 a month.

Executives at ASPCA are paid more than $5.5 million in salaries and receive $4.8 million in pension benefits. I'll write about them next.