Feed the Beast and He Will Come Back for More

Whether one is for or against billion-dollar giveaways to wealthy sports team owners, one thing is for sure-- the lopsided deals in Washington, DC and Kansas will likely boost efforts by other team owners looking to update their facilities, according to Neil deMause, a journalist who has written extensively about stadium subsidies.

“For whatever reason, we’re in a moment where team owners feel entitled to demand a lot more billions of dollars than anybody else has,” he said. “And the more they get away with that, the more their fellow owners are going to be emboldened to ask for the same thing.”

In Illinois, lawmakers have discussed for years an effort to relocate the NFL’s Chicago Bears from Soldier Field to a new site along Lake Michigan in Chicago or in the suburb of Arlington Heights. For decades, the team has been primarily owned by the McCaskey family. Recently, Bears President and CEO Kevin Warren cited a lack of “legislative partnership” in announcing the team would explore a potential stadium in neighboring Indiana.  That news received an icy reception from Illinois lawmakers, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

“I don’t believe it’s a real threat,” said Illinois state Rep. Kam Buckner, a Democrat whose district includes parts of Chicago’s South Side. Buckner said lawmakers have been pushing the team to provide a more detailed proposal before approving a package of taxpayer-funded site and infrastructure improvements.

Buckner said lawmakers in Springfield watched the Kansas stadium deal closely, but are determined not to follow a similar route.  “What happened in Kansas is exactly what Illinois should not do,” he said. “Kansas is preparing to hand billions of public dollars to one of the wealthiest ownership families in professional sports history — not for schools, not for transit, not for housing, but to subsidize a stadium for a team that’s already printing money.”

Buckner said his constituents have a long list of legislative priorities — ranging from health care to affordability issues — ahead of professional sports.  A devout Bears fan, Buckner said he won’t be drawn into a “hostage negotiation” with the team.  “It’s about panic. It’s about fear,” he said. “It’s about this system that we’ve created, where, if you don’t overpay, a billionaire might just take his toys and leave town, and folks are scared of that.”