Bear Down!

By Patrick F. Cannon

Let me throw some numbers at you Chicago Bears fans. The franchise is worth a minimum of $8.2 billion. It is also extremely popular with television audiences. Last year’s playoff game with the Los Angeles Rams drew 45.4 million viewers. Regular season games average more than 20 million viewers, among the highest in the NFL.

            Since their home games are played at Chicago’s Soldier Field with a capacity of 61,500 , it’s clear that most fans see the games in the comfort of their homes, or at the local tavern. Few will never actually attend a game. In any event, anyone who has attended a professional or major college game will have to grudgingly admit that it’s better to watch most sports on television, given the advanced technology now available. It’s a good deal cheaper too! Getting yourself a beer and dog at Soldier Field will cost about $20, as opposed to about $5 at home.

            The cheapest season ticket – for 10 games on average – will set you back about $150 per game, and you’ll probably need binoculars to clearly see the action on the field. The best seats go for about $550 per. Oh, and for most of them, you’ll have to buy a seat license up front. That can add $3,000. I won’t even mention parking, and the hassle of getting there. Oh, and leaving after the game. And, of course, it might rain and/or snow, or be really, really cold.

            The team raised ticket prices for the 2026 season by 13.5 percent. God knows what the increase will be if they ever win the Super Bowl again. But apparently all this isn’t enough for the McCaskey family. They must rent Soldier Field and share concession income! Horrors!  This when most teams own their stadiums and get to keep all the dough. How unfair! Of course, many of them paid for their stadiums, something the Bears are unwilling to do. They do say they are willing to put up $2 billion of the cost, which seems like a lot, but not when compared to the cost of the Los Angles stadium, which totaled almost $6 billion. But let’s say the Bears can get by with $4 billion. So, who pays the rest, plus the additional infrastructure costs?

            The team is trying to solve that problem by setting up a bidding war, so far between Chicago,  Arlington Heights (where they already own sufficient land), and just south of the city in a place called Indiana. Who knows if Kenosha or Racine, Wisconsin might be next?

            Here’s my opinion on this trumped-up drama – why would anyone care if they play in Chicago or Gary? The simple fact is that most of the people who attend the games in person don’t live in the city of Chicago. Neither the Dallas Cowboys nor New York Giants (and some other teams too) play in those cities. Why should we care?

            I predict that in the end the State of Illinois will produce a package of infrastructure dough and give Arlington Heights the power to make a real estate tax deal that will satisfy the greedy McCaskey’s. And they’ll still be the Chicago Bears, “Monsters of the Midway.” Extra credit if you know where that nickname came from.

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon