With lower than two weeks to go earlier than Chicago’s election, Mayor Lori Lightfoot isn’t laughing on the Bears anymore.
Her first response to the workforce’s curiosity in Arlington Heights was to mock the NFL franchise and encourage its leaders to “focus on putting a winning team on the field, beating the Packers finally and being relevant past October.”
But now that the Bears have dropped a landmine in entrance of the mayor’s reelection marketing campaign by closing on the previous Arlington Heights racetrack property they hope to rework into a contemporary stadium, Lightfoot faces a tricky scenario that’s largely out of her management however will nonetheless draw criticism of her combative model.
If the Bears in the end depart the town — which isn’t a forgone conclusion, although Wednesday’s closing of the suburban land deal is a major step — Lightfoot runs the chance of being often known as the mayor who misplaced the Bears. It’s a lose-lose for the incumbent. Her preliminary, antagonistic comment in 2021 to the workforce exploring the previous Arlington International racecourse property could possibly be used in opposition to her by critics who argue that she may’ve accomplished extra to maintain the Bears from making a transfer. Her opponents have hammered her for it on the marketing campaign path.
In the weeks after the Bears began flirting with the suburbs, Lightfoot pivoted from ridiculing the workforce to demanding that they clarify what they need from the town. She then created a particular fee to discover potential methods to put a dome over Soldier Field and make it a extra enticing choice for the Bears. Lightfoot has by no means stated how the town would pay for a $2.2 billion dome over Soldier Field, however has provided it as a possible choice for the workforce as an alternative of Arlington Heights.
Realistically, there isn’t a lot Lightfoot can do to maintain the Bears from exiting to the suburbs. If the workforce can pull collectively the financing it wants, it’s going to depart, and that has little to do with City Hall.
But that gained’t cease some individuals from blaming her, anyway.
“The plan that she came up with was a little ‘too little, too late,’” stated Chicago political strategist Delmarie Cobb. “There’s still a great deal of pride in being one of the original franchisees for the NFL, and to lose that to Arlington Heights, I mean, that’s a wound.”
The unfolding scenario with the Bears has drawn blended responses from rival candidates. Former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas, activist Ja’Mal Green and sixth Ward Ald. Roderick Sawyer have stated the town ought to simply let the Bears go. Businessman Willie Wilson has made the unlikely suggestion of bringing one other workforce to Chicago. State Rep. Kambium “Kam” Buckner and 4th Ward Ald. Sophia King have stated the town ought to work to maintain the Bears — however solely to a sure level. Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson, in the meantime, stated the workforce’s departure appears assured “due in part to the defiant nature of the Lightfoot administration.”
As the information broke Wednesday of the land closing, Lightfoot’s marketing campaign launched an announcement that lamented the event but additionally struck an optimistic tone.
“Today’s news … has been anticipated for some time. Nonetheless, all of us die-hard Bears fans, the mayor included, included, know and believe that the Chicago Bears should remain in Chicago,” she stated.
“So now that the land deal has closed,” Lightfoot’s assertion continued, “we have an even better opportunity to continue making the business case as to why the Bears should remain in Chicago and why adaptations to Soldier Field can meet and exceed the Bears’ future needs.”
If the Bears do depart, it’s been clear from the start that Lightfoot would face blame from a section of residents who would view that with the identical revulsion reserved for the 2019 double-doink missed discipline aim. But the town doesn’t have the cash or out there land to create the type of fashionable stadium the Bears need, and he or she would additionally catch warmth from good authorities fanatics if she prompt spending public cash for the multibillion-dollar non-public franchise.
University of Illinois at Chicago political science professor emeritus Christopher Mooney stated just a few many years in the past, any signal of the Bears sooner or later departing the town would have induced widespread heartbreak. But even diehard Bears followers within the metropolis may sympathize with the powerful spot Lightfoot is in now after public opinion has begun to bitter on sports activities groups getting sweetheart offers on the backs of taxpayers, he added.
“This game that these billionaires play with cities in which they own sports teams has gotten kind of old, right?” Mooney stated. “There’s less sympathy than there once was. … The reactions, as far as I can tell, have been a collective yawn. I don’t think there’s a huge hue and cry. I don’t see massive public outrage. I don’t see the mayor going to the mat.”
But Cobb stated even when it will be politically fraught for the town to entice the Bears to remain in Chicago, Lightfoot ought to have been extra diplomatic, provided that income could be ceded to Arlington Heights ought to the workforce depart from Soldier Field.
“I just think that it was the accumulation of insults or slights the Bears felt from this mayor, and of course, that’s what her opponents are going to use against her because they’re going to say, ‘This is more of the same. And in this case, look at the results. We’re losing a major asset.’”
Founded in Decatur, the Bears moved to Chicago in 1921 and performed at Wrigley Field for 50 years. In 1971, they shifted to Soldier Field, the place the Chicago Park District grew to become their landlord. The Bears pay $6.48 million per yr underneath the present lease, which runs by 2033, however the workforce can exit early by paying a penalty.
Should the Bears pack up and depart underneath Lightfoot’s tenure, she may have been the primary Chicago mayor to preside over the exodus of a serious sports activities workforce within the metropolis’s fashionable historical past. In 1960, the NFL’s Chicago Cardinals left for St. Louis earlier than finally settling in Phoenix. And Gov. James R. Thompson famously led the push for the Illinois General Assembly to approve a brand new tax-subsidized, $167 million White Sox stadium at actually the eleventh hour to persuade the Major League Baseball workforce to not pack up for St. Petersburg, Fla.
Two many years in the past the Bears made an analogous risk to depart Chicago. But again then, the workforce nabbed a cope with Mayor Richard M. Daley that contained a principally taxpayer sponsored $632 million renovation of Soldier Field, one of many largest authorities contributions within the historical past {of professional} sports activities.
Should the Bears depart this time, Lightfoot will hardly be the one chief of a serious metropolis the place followers are rooting for a workforce that doesn’t technically play inside metropolis limits. Lightfoot typically factors out the New York Giants and Jets each play in New Jersey, the San Francisco 49ers are primarily based in suburban Santa Clara and the L.A. Rams’ new SoFi stadium is in Inglewood, California.
As for whether or not Lightfoot’s ribbing of the Bears’ newest file was a misstep, Mooney stated the mayor was merely sharing a sentiment that different followers of the workforce know all too nicely.
“That particular biting comment was not a comment that only her alone made,” Mooney stated “I bet there’s lots of people in the city of Chicago who were saying the same thing: ‘Who cares? If you ever win a game every now and then, maybe we’ll care about you. Nineteen eighty-five was a long time ago.’”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com