Lori Lightfoot Sounds Increasingly Delusional Over Bears Stadium Issue

When news first broke that the Chicago Bears placed a bid on the Arlington Racecourse International property in Arlington Heights, Mayor Lori Lightfoot brushed it off. She seemed so confident at the time that the Bears weren't going anywhere. They were locked into an ironclad lease with Soldier Field and should focus their attention on beating the Packers rather than moving. Then the organization won the bid. Expectations are that they will own the property outright by the end of 2023. As that realization began to settle in, Lightfoot's attitude has changed. Her words towards the team softened, growing to a point where she was all but pleading with the McCaskey family to reconsider this idea. That was again displayed during her appearance on Mully & Haugh for 670 The Score. She offered tons of optimism that the city could put forth a plan that could top anything a move to Arlington Heights would gain for them.

It is hard to take her seriously.

The Bears have battled the Chicago Park District over changes to Soldier Field and the surrounding property for literal decades. It is a bureaucratic nightmare. Everything was met with resistance. Even trying to get a sportsbook installed in the stadium was brushed off, which proved to be the final straw that kickstarted this entire process. It is difficult to understand where Lightfoot gets the confidence to think she can suddenly sway the CPD into compliance. Especially when the Bears will be able to do whatever they want with that Arlington Park property. This doesn't even account for the fact that Lightfoot may not be in her position much longer. The next Chicago mayoral election is set to occur in February of 2023. Her approval ratings have declined significantly over the past couple of years, and there is a strong belief she could be ousted by what many expect to be a "crowded" field of worthy candidates. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ8rJEvHzBo&ab_channel=WGNNews

Lori Lightfoot is fighting a losing battle.

All signs point to the Bears being determined upon their course. They believe they will own the property once the process is complete and plans are in motion for a new stadium to be constructed. They've even hired an architectural firm to start producing ideas for how it could look. The same firm helped build Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas for the Raiders. So yeah, the McCaskeys are pretty serious about this. With all due respect to Lori Lightfoot, it might be better to call this one off. Keeping the Bears in Chicago might sound like a political victory she can't pass up, but the reality is she doesn't have enough allies or resources to make that happen. This entire situation goes back long before she was elected to her position.

There is no undoing it now.

Not unless she can somehow convince the CPD to outright sell Soldier Field to the team, which will never happen. It is almost impossible to see how the organization doesn't move to Arlington Heights by the middle of this decade. They'll have plenty of investors eager to go in on the property with them, and they'll have something they've coveted since the 1970s—total control of their own building.