Indiana Finance Authority May Be Raising Red Flags on Bears Stadium

Abdul had a fascinating piece in his Cheat Sheet. For those who know, Abdul runs IndyPolitics.org and also publishes the Cheat Sheet, which is a subscription-based service. A couple times a month, sometimes weekly, he sends out what I think he calls news, gossip, and innuendo — things he’s hearing around the Statehouse that may not appear on IndyPolitics.org. He had a very interesting piece about what’s going on with the Bears and the funding for a stadium. Lawmakers here in Indiana created something called the Northwest Stadium Authority. It’s essentially the group responsible for putting together the deal to try to bring the Bears to Indiana. It would serve as the hub for setting up the taxes and structuring the agreement. However, the actual funding for the stadium has to come through bonding, and that bonding has to go through the Indiana Finance Authority. You may remember that State Treasurer Daniel Elliott was on the show a couple of weeks ago. He talked about his role on that board. He has a seat on the Indiana Finance Authority, which is a five-member board. Elliott made it clear that he has serious reservations about approving any bonds for a Bears stadium. And when you look at the history of these deals, you can understand why. Financially, stadiums have often been disasters for taxpayers. Even here in Indianapolis, if we’re being honest, Lucas Oil Stadium hasn’t exactly been a financial win. Some people say there’s no dollar amount you can put on what a Super Bowl means for the city. But there is if you’re the one paying the taxes. I don’t even live in Indianapolis, and I still pay taxes toward that stadium. We actually lost money on the Super Bowl. I’m a Bears fan, not a Colts fan. I cheer for the Colts mostly because I’m paying for their stadium and I’d prefer not to lose my backside on it. But when you take the emotion out of it, the financial numbers on stadiums generally don’t favor taxpayers. With Lucas Oil Stadium, we still owe more than $450 million nearly 20 years later. We also paid on the RCA Dome for 12 years after it was demolished. So Daniel Elliott, sitting on the Indiana Finance Authority board, raised serious concerns. According to Abdul’s report, the authority recently met and the agenda included discussion of bonds related to the Bears stadium. But that item was eventually removed from the agenda. Abdul reported that only three of the five members were present at the meeting. Elliott was reportedly one of them. Since the board requires three votes to move forward, and Elliott is widely believed to be a no — especially based on what he said on this show — the item was pulled. Here’s what Abdul wrote, and it seems pretty accurate. Talking about the removal of the Bears financing item from the agenda, he wrote that "It’s a move that tells you everything you need to know about where things stand. Major public financing proposals don’t get delayed because of scheduling conflicts; they get delayed because the votes aren’t there. And when the votes aren’t there, leadership has a choice: take the hit or buy time. This week, they chose time." That seems about right. Something as big as a Bears stadium wouldn’t be delayed just because someone had a scheduling conflict. If you’re talking about billions of dollars in public financing, everyone would make sure they were there. This has been a top priority for the governor and clearly a priority for the General Assembly. While they may eventually get what they want, the fact that this agenda item was pulled suggests there’s still serious pushback happening. And it all comes back to this. First, I still think the Bears are staying in Chicago — or at least the greater Chicagoland area, most likely Arlington Heights. I saw a media figure talking about this yesterday, suggesting the Bears should just leave Chicago entirely, along with the Blackhawks, Cubs, and Bulls. That tells me that person doesn’t really understand Chicago. Take the Cubs, for example. Wrigley Field is the Cubs. Wrigley Field is the Chicago Cubs. If the Cubs left Wrigley, they would probably lose half their fan base. That’s why the Ricketts family has invested hundreds of millions not only into Wrigley Field but also into the surrounding neighborhood to build the Wrigleyville area. Wrigley Field is arguably bigger than the franchise itself. It’s a massive marketing engine. That’s why the Cubs consistently draw more than two million fans a year whether the team is good or not. So it’s amazing to me that some people in Indiana media don’t understand why the Bears are trying so hard to stay in the Chicagoland area. The sports teams and their fan bases are deeply tied to the fabric of the city. That’s the core of the franchise. If the Bears moved to Hammond, sure, some people from the Indiana side of Chicagoland might attend games. But it would basically be an island out there. There wouldn’t be much reason to go to Hammond except for the eight to twelve times a year the Bears play home games. The Bears understand that. They also understand that most of their fan base lives in the Chicagoland area on the Illinois side. The same applies to the Bulls and the Blackhawks. These teams have decades of history tied to Chicago. That’s why I’ve always believed the Bears are leveraging Indiana to get a better deal out of Illinois. From their perspective, it’s a smart strategy. And it appears that strategy is still unfolding. The interesting part of the fight in Illinois hasn’t really been about whether the Bears should stay in the state. It’s been about where within the state they should stay. Some assembly members representing Chicago didn’t want the Bears leaving the city. But the Bears made it clear they’re not going to put a dome on Soldier Field, and there isn’t another viable site within Chicago itself. They’ve already purchased land in Arlington Heights. So the real conversation isn’t Chicago versus Arlington Heights. It’s Arlington Heights versus leaving the state entirely and going to Indiana. And it sounds like some Chicago-area lawmakers are starting to recognize that reality. What’s fascinating, though, is how quickly Indiana lawmakers can move when something like this interests them. Look at how fast they created the stadium authority. Look at how quickly they started offering tax incentives and building a framework to bring the Bears to Indiana. We’re talking about a franchise worth roughly $8 billion. But when it comes to helping everyday taxpayers — fixing property taxes, dealing with utility bills, or figuring out how to maintain roads without raising taxes by $6.5 billion — suddenly they don’t have time. Just look at the property tax situation we talked about in the opening segment. Lawmakers admitted they completely messed up the income tax changes and don’t know how to fix them. They can move quickly when they want to. They proved that with the Bears. And I hope the lasting takeaway from this whole situation is that lawmakers are showing how quickly they can act when they care about something — and how slowly they move when it comes to helping you.