I say “soccer.” My European mates say “fútbol.”
Whether it’s soccer or fútbol, nobody can be saying “Chicago Bears.” It would be the “Arlington Heights Bears.”
Good riddance, I say.
The Bears are historical past, at the very least so far as the “Chicago” is anxious. In September 2021, the staff inked an settlement to buy Arlington International Racecourse in northwest suburban Arlington Heights. Once the deal is completed, the staff will plunk down $197.2 million for the 326-acre property.
On Nov. 7, Arlington Heights trustees permitted a zoning change that may allow a sports activities betting facility within the space. “A sports betting facility is part of the Bears’ $5 billion proposal to create a new NFL stadium and a mixed-use commercial and residential district on the 326-acre Arlington Park site,” the Tribune reported. “Trustees also approved a ‘road map’ agreement intended to guide further negotiations around the site.”
It can be an exceedingly lengthy highway. Experts predict it should take a few years for the McCaskey household, which personal the Bears, to strong-arm Arlington Heights politicians and taxpayers for tax subsidies and different gimmes.
The McCaskeys could also be licking their bottom-line chops, however they’re additionally identified for being, uh, frugal. So you may wager that, regardless of their protestations, they’ll attempt to maintain up the town of Arlington Heights for as a lot pork as they’ll get.
You can’t blame them. The metropolis’s NFL franchise homeowners have lengthy been sad about their association to lease Soldier Field from the Chicago Park District. The stadium has a soccer capability of 61,500, making it the smallest stadium within the NFL. Soldier Field can be the league’s oldest. The Bears have complained concerning the situation of the enjoying subject and the stadium’s configuration.
So the staff has launched into lofty plans for a brand new, state-of-the-art stadium and sprawling leisure complicated that can broaden capability and construct in profitable add-ons comparable to eating places, retail area and sports activities betting.
So, Bears, go. You are dropping massive, and much from lovably. This soccer season is already historical past, and you might be ages away from 1986, the primary and solely time you gained a Super Bowl.
That was 36 years in the past.
Long gone are the triumphs of Walter “Sweetness” Payton, William “Refrigerator” Perry and “The Super Bowl Shuffle,” the Bears’ rap tune of gridiron victory.
The Bears have shuffled off into dropping, perpetually. The Monsters of the Midway aren’t scaring anybody. Now, they need to go to Arlington Heights to lose.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot vowed to discover a option to maintain the staff within the metropolis. The McCaskeys have ignored her pleas and gives to maintain our hometown staff. Mayor, allow them to go.
Instead, go soccer. Get in on the worldwide glow of the most well-liked sport on the planet, now on superb show on the large World Cup event in Qatar.
The World Cup, a world soccer event that takes place each 4 years, presents males’s soccer groups from nations around the globe. And soccer’s adoring devotees come from each nook of the globe.
The World Cup host, the International Federation of Association Football, or FIFA, claims it has bought at the very least 3 million tickets to the World Cup, which runs from Nov. 20 to Dec. 18. FIFA predicts one other 5 billion folks will view it on TV.
Soccer is the place to be.
Here, it’s the Chicago Fire. Our soccer staff is a forward-looking and welcome different to the soon-to-be-out-of-towner Bears. It is apply named for the occasion that put the town on the trail to greatness. That catastrophe laid the groundwork to rebuild Chicago to world-class standing.
If the Bears skedaddle, the Fire might grow to be the stadium’s marquee tenant.
In Chicago, soccer is sizzling. Last week, information experiences depicted avid followers crowding neighborhood bars to cheer on their favourite World Cup groups.
If you attend a Chicago Fire recreation, you’ll encounter a fervent, youthful fan base that displays the town’s hallmark variety. Soccer has probably the most numerous followers amongst all main sports activities performed within the United States, with 40% being folks of coloration, in line with a current report by Morning Consult, a world advertising analysis agency.
“More than 1 in 4 U.S. adults who identified as soccer fans (27%) were Hispanic.” That’s an analogous profile to the NBA — 39% of followers are folks of coloration, in line with a survey carried out in early April.
“Enthusiasm for soccer was higher among younger adults than the general population, with 40% of those ages 18-34 identifying as fans,” the report stated. Researchers additionally discovered that “more than half of Hispanic Americans (55%) identified as soccer fans, a considerably higher share than among Black (33%) and white (31%) adults, as well as those of other races (43%).”
Generations of Chicagoans don’t know what it means to have a championship “football” staff.
Mike Ditka who?
“Soccer has been dubbed the ‘sport of the future’ in the United States for decades,” Morning Consult famous.
Buh-bye, Bears. Soccer is Chicago’s future.
Laura Washington is a political commentator and longtime Chicago journalist. Her columns seem within the Tribune every Monday. Write to her at [email protected].
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Source: www.bostonherald.com