Indiana Gov. Mike Braun has signed a bill intended to lure the Chicago Bears across state lines.
The Indiana bill offers financing, tax breaks, and infrastructure for a dome stadium they say will anchor a new entertainment district some 20 miles south of the city that bears the Bears name.
Of course, the Bears already play in a huge entertainment district that brims with restaurants, theaters and bars: Chicago.
The team's longtime home has been Soldier Field, built in 1924. It is the oldest stadium in the NFL, and open to the elements. When icy snows fall, opposing teams shiver in the lake winds. The Bear players wear short sleeves, and sling touchdown passes.
Bear down, as we fans say. Domes are for tea parties, not football.
And devotion to Da Bears seems to fit Chicago's sense of civic identity: the "City of the Big Shoulders," as the poet Carl Sandburg called it.
As Jim McMahon, who quarterbacked the team to a Super Bowl title in the 1885 season, has said, "This is a hard-working town, and these fans appreciate hard-working players. If you play hard for Chicago, they'll love you."
But NFL clubs play just eight or nine home games a season - or even fewer, with many now playing a game or two overseas, in cities from Munich to Melbourne. And plenty of teams have already relocated to the suburbs. The New York Giants and Jets play their home games in East Rutherford, New Jersey; the San Francisco 49ers play in Santa Clara; and the Kansas City Chiefs are building their new stadium across the Kansas state line. Maybe the city names of football teams are already more branding than geography.
Should Bear fans not only bear down, but get a grip? The team might move to Indiana, not Indonesia. Hammond is part of metro Chicago, after all. And it could use a boost.
"Northwest Indiana has been trapped in perpetual decline ever since the auto plants, steel mills and ironworks started closing shop in 1970," Andrew Lawrence wrote in the Guardian this week. He says a new Bears stadium across the border could "breathe new life into a south Chicago community battered by economic crosswinds."
A recent poll by Axios Chicago found that 74% of those who voted say they would "carry a grudge" against the Bears if they moved to Indiana. I voted in that poll—twice. It's the Chicago Way.
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