The Chicago Bears’ ongoing search for a site for its planned new stadium has led the team to a much more accessible option than previously presented by most other suitors.

After previously considering or receiving inbound interest from the city of Chicago and the suburban locales of Arlington Heights, Aurora, Naperville, Richton Park, and Waukegan, plus Country Club Hills, WSCR-AM is reporting a new area of focus by the team: a parking lot directly south of Soldier Field that is currently popular among tailgating Bears fans.

It remains unclear whether this site is a serious option for the team or a move to create leverage in talks with a prospective host town. But the Bears’ stadium saga remains one of the most closely watched issues across the NFL.

The Soldier Field parking lot site, meanwhile, has a prior history of thwarted development. In 2016, “Star Wars” creator George Lucas planned to house a significant art and movie memorabilia collection on the grounds but ultimately dropped that plan amid local opposition. 

“As we stated earlier this year, we want to appropriately explore all opportunities across Chicagoland for the development of a world-class stadium,” the Bears said following the WCSR report.

Big Aspirations

The team’s vision is to develop a $5 billion domed stadium and mixed-use development that would be capable of hosting major events such as the Super Bowl or the Final Four. Those marquee attractions, and others like it, currently skip the country’s third-largest media market due to its lack of a suitable facility.

A tax dispute with the city of Arlington Heights, where the team purchased the site of the former Arlington International Racecourse earlier this year, delayed the beginning of construction there, as originally intended, and talks broke off for months. That left the Bears without their most promising option. But city officials say they’ve resumed talks with the Bears.

Just as the Baltimore Orioles are set to begin a critical new era, they could welcome a new franchise owner to the helm. 

The Orioles, who are majority-owned by the 94-year-old Peter Angelos and led by his son, team chair and CEO John Angelos, are in talks to sell to Carlyle Group Inc. founder David Rubenstein, according to a Bloomberg report. 

Born and raised in Baltimore, Rubenstein was previously a deputy domestic policy advisor to president Jimmy Carter. He has been an active philanthropist and leader of his private equity group, and he currently holds an estimated net worth of $3.6 billion. 

The club carries an estimated value of $1.7 billion.

Lease Negotiations

Representatives for Rubenstein and the Orioles have not commented, but if the deal happens, it would come at a particularly crucial juncture for the team. The Orioles and the Maryland Stadium Authority are facing a Dec. 31 deadline to finalize a 30-year lease extension that would not only keep the team at the publicly owned Camden Yards, but it could lead to mixed-use development around the venerable ballpark.

Those two parties previously completed a memorandum of understanding, but as the deadline for a final deal approaches, division has resurfaced over how to approach the development. State officials would prefer to complete development parameters after first finalizing a more narrow lease extension, but the club is pushing to have all elements considered in a larger agreement.

The potential ownership shift also arrives on the heels of a renaissance season for the Orioles, who in 2023 enjoyed a 101-win regular season before losing in the Division Series to the eventual World Series-winning Texas Rangers.

The NWSL’s new record-setting $240 million media deals are already influencing a significant expansion of the league’s schedule.

In 2024, as new franchises launch in the Bay Area and Salt Lake City, the NWSL’s 14 clubs will each play 26 regular-season matches, four more than the 22-game schedule this past campaign. 

The postseason, meanwhile, will expand from six to eight teams, eliminating first-round byes for top seeds and adding two more playoff games in the process. Altogether, the NWSL will play 190 matches in 2024, up from 137 this year, providing dozens more opportunities for clubs to bring in new ticketing and sponsorship revenue on top of the 40-times increase in annual media rights fees.

More games also mean more inventory for the NWSL’s new incumbent media partners, Amazon Prime Video, Scripps Sports, CBS Sports, and ESPN, who together will broadcast 118 matches to national audiences. The remaining games will be available via a league streaming package.

Last season, the NWSL set an attendance record with more than 1 million fans attending games across the league. The NWSL is also aggressively exploring adding two more expansion teams by 2026, growing the league to 16 franchises.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell attended this week’s Monday Night Football matchup between the Jacksonville Jaguars and Cincinnati Bengals. The visiting Bengals’ upset win  provided some better-than-expected drama — but that’s likely not why Goodell was in town.

Jacksonville mayor Donna Deegan and city council president Ron Salem met with Goodell before the game, according to the Florida Times-Union, to discuss the city’s ongoing talks with the Jaguars about partnering to fund $2 billion worth of construction for a future stadium.

Earlier this year, the team impressed fans with a bold vision for a reimagined stadium in downtown Jacksonville that would take its current home, EverBank Stadium, to an entirely new level. Renderings showed off upgrades like a canopy to enhance the gameday experience.

Under one proposal, the NFL team and city would split the costs, amounting to $1 billion each, but securing a deal has proved to be difficult. Jaguars president Mark Lamping had to walk back comments he made that many characterized as a threat to relocate the franchise without a deal for the stadium funding.

Bringing Goodell to Jacksonville could be a savvy negotiating ploy from the Jaguars to speed up city leaders’ thinking. A mayoral spokesperson told the Times-Union that the city still is months away from having a deal in place.