Expert Reveals What New Mayor Likely Does In New Bears Stadium Talks

Everybody thought the idea of the Chicago Bears staying in the city was dead a month ago. They'd completed the purchase of Arlington Park. Former Mayor Lori Lightfoot had badly botched an attempt to reconcile with the team, choosing instead to insult them after they placed a bid on the property. That seemed like the end of it. Now the winds have shifted. Cook County politicians are trying to strong-arm the Bears with property tax hikes that would force them to pay tens of millions per year. Team president Kevin Warren wasn't ready to accept that.

So he decided to pivot from the original plan, accepting a meeting with the mayor of Naperville to discuss the possibility of building their new stadium there. Then another report surfaced that Warren and George McCaskey would also meet with new Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson about the possibility of finding an alternative site inside the city other than Soldier Field. It's a wild turn of events after what happened a year ago. Fran Spielman of the Chicago Sun-Times spoke to political expert Peter Giangreco about it. He doesn't think Johnson will be willing to take the risk simply because he doesn't have to.

“I don’t know anybody who thinks keeping the Bears is a priority right now,” Giangreco said.

“Most people would say Lori Lightfoot lost the Bears. Not Brandon Johnson. It’s not his problem to fix. … There’s just no reason to spend the political capital because it’s not his mess. This is his predecessor’s mess. She owns it. He doesn’t need to slip that jacket on. If he does, then he wears it.”

Nobody disputes the benefits of such an idea.

Getting the Bears to stay in Chicago after Lightfoot completely botched it would be a huge political victory for Johnson. The problem is it would cost a lot of what he promised on the campaign trail. There is also the issue of alternative sites. Put simply, there aren't many.

The South Loop site known as the 78 is bisected by an active railroad track, and the University of Illinois is building an academic and research hub there.

The contaminated South Works site that formerly housed U.S. Steel has bedeviled every developer who has ever tackled it.

That leaves the old Silver Shovel dump site at Roosevelt and Kostner, the old Finkl Steel site in the middle of Lincoln Park and McCormick Place East, which would violate the lakefront protection ordinance.

The Chicago Bears face a clear reality.

If they aim to stay in the city, they will have to pay almost the entire bill for a new stadium. Johnson could help supply them with a location and work to get them favorable property taxes. When it comes to public funding and anything else, that is a non-starter. While Johnson may wish to help, given the obvious benefits for his political standing, the hurdles he'd need to clear are steep. It doesn't seem like a quagmire he would want to step in when he has no reason to.

Perhaps Warren and the Chicago Bears brass can persuade him differently. The team president is no stranger to negotiating high-profile deals. It's one of the biggest reasons the McCaskeys hired him. He's going to find the best possible outcome for his organization. If that means staying in Chicago, then so be it. Johnson is playing with house money. If the Bears can make it easy enough for him, all he has to do is say yes and he'd be guaranteed re-election before even having to campaign a few years from now.