Emails Reveal How Badly City Botched Chicago Bears Stadium Requests

The Chicago Bears deciding to bid on Arlington Racecourse International last season was not a spur-of-the-moment thing. Organizations don't choose to start the process of moving out of a stadium they'd called home for half a century on a whim. This was something that had been building for years. The relationship between team brass and the city officials had been on a steady decline. It eventually reached a boiling point when team president Ted Phillips engaged the Chicago Park District about adding a sportsbook to Soldier Field in hopes of taking advantage of a potential new revenue stream.

Partners were already lining up. All the CPD had to do was say yes and everybody would start making money. One month became two. Two became three. Phillips waited and waited. According to NBC 5 Chicago, the district superintendent Mike Kelly took his sweet time offering a response. When he finally did, it was short and exactly what the Bears didn't want to hear.

It would be seven months before Kelly finally responded, writing in November 2020, “At this time it would not be productive to pursue the opportunities outlined in your letter.”

In June 2021, Phillips wrote to Kelly again, noting that Park District chief’s November letter was prompted by follow-up from the Bears after they hadn’t heard back at all on their proposal.

“It is disappointing that it is over a year since we reached out to you and you have refused to engage in good faith discussions about an opportunity that generates revenue for the CPD while leveraging the Chicago Bears brand,” Phillips wrote, again requesting a meeting to discuss a potential sportsbook.

By June of 2021, Phillips and the McCaskey had gotten fed up.

They started the process of finding alternatives to Soldier Field. Everybody wanted a way out. They wanted the organization to finally control its own destiny with a property and stadium they owned and controlled. When Arlington went up for auction, it was the perfect opportunity. A $197 million bid later, they were on the road to leaving downtown Chicago for the first time in a century. The CPD and Mayor Lori Lightfoot were caught entirely off guard. They couldn't understand where all of this had come from. If they'd had any common sense, they'd have realized their lackadaisical communication with the team had become their greatest error.

Indeed, the emails are loaded with perceived slights – repeated instances in which the Bears complain their overtures had been greeted by silence.

In July 2021, after the Arlington Park bid had been revealed, Phillips sent a note to Mayekar about an upcoming meeting, saying the Bears intended to discuss ideas “to make Soldier Field among the top 25% of all NFL stadiums.”

Roughly a month later, he emailed again, asking, “Please respond.”

The Chicago Bears would not alter course once it was set.

Many thought the property bid was merely a bluff by the organization to finally get the city's attention. It certainly worked. The CPD and Lightfoot were forced to scramble to piece together a potential $2.2 billion plan to renovate Soldier Field and its entire property. That included putting a dome on the stadium itself. However, it was too little, too late. The Bears were months away from owning the Arlington property outright. Why stick around in a place they still wouldn't control, working with people they hated when they could take over a 326-acre property that could be rebuilt to their exact desires?

The window had been wide open for almost a full year for city officials to avoid this disaster. They ignored it. This is the fault of the people in charge. They took the Chicago Bears for granted. It's clear they believed the Soldier Field lease would keep the McCaskeys from trying anything for at least the next decade. There was plenty of time. Strange how the daughter of George Halas might not like being jerked around after a while. Now the organization is busy crafting plans for its new stadium. Lightfoot and the CPD are left wondering what will become of Soldier Field once its biggest draw is out of town.