The Bears know a thing or two about timing and are set to make a big announcement a day before Thursday’s NFL draft, where they hold the No. 1 pick.

Chicago is advancing its efforts to build a lakefront stadium just south of Soldier Field (above), showing some initial progress in the face of opposition to the team’s plans. 

The NFL team has called a Wednesday press conference to detail its plans for a “state-of-the-art, publicly owned enclosed stadium” on the city’s Museum Campus near Lake Michigan. The move builds materially on the Bears’ announced intent last month to stay in the city of Chicago after a lengthy tour of alternate options across the area suburbs. 

Reading Between the Lines

Like any other stadium project, there is still a very long way to go between an event like this press conference and an actual opening. But this latest step does show the depth of the Bears’ desire to hone in on this particular location after initial resistance surfaced from two local preservation groups as well as in Arlington Heights, where the Bears previously intended to build the stadium.

And also like many other stadium developments, there are still significant questions about financing of the Bears’ project. The venue itself is projected to cost between $2.5 billion and $3 billion, with perhaps another $1 billion going toward roads and infrastructure improvements. The Bears have pledged $2 billion toward the effort. There have been talks about a potential “financing partnership” with the White Sox in which both teams would take a more collaborative approach to help ensure their respective efforts to build new stadiums get done. 

But how that remaining funding gap is filled, presumably with some form of taxpayer assistance, will be a critical factor—particularly given that there is no deal in place with either the city of Chicago or the state of Illinois.

“If we’re going to build 21st-century stadiums, we have to make sure that that investment is activating the entire city of Chicago, and these conversations, particularly with the Bears, have been quite positive,” Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson said last week. “I appreciate the leadership of [team president] Kevin Warren. … But no, we have not made any commitments to any new forms of revenue.”

The Bears’ stadium saga remains one of the most closely watched issues across the NFL, as well as the rest of the sports industry. Despite being the country’s third-largest media market, Chicago, for years, has been shut out of hosting major events such as the Super Bowl and Final Four, as it does not have a large-scale domed stadium. 

South Side Shift

The White Sox, meanwhile, are facing some resistance in their efforts to build a successor facility to Guaranteed Rate Field, and do so closer to downtown Chicago. Johnson recently vetoed an idea of using the city’s amusement tax for either the Bears’ stadium project or the one advanced by White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, and added that the MLB team owner needs to “put some skin in the game.”

To that end, Crain’s Chicago Business reported that Reinsdorf is prepared to pay at least $200 million toward the project. But with initial cost estimates for the White Sox stadium hovering around $1.2 billion—a figure likely to escalate—a significant funding gap remains there, too. 

There is an expensive and complicated situation playing out around sports venues in Kansas City, and, in a weird way, Patrick Mahomes (above, second from left) is connected to all of them.

Beyond his full-time job as quarterback of the Chiefs, the two-time NFL MVP has minority ownership stakes in the Royals and K.C. Current, as part of his portfolio that also includes an investment in Sporting KC and Major League Pickleball. Mahomes joined the MLB team’s ownership group in 2020 and is one of the founders, along with his wife, Brittany Mahomes (above, far left), of the NWSL club that launched in ’21 and is currently atop that league’s standings.

How We Got Here

So, what’s at the heart of the stadium drama? Leaders of the NFL’s back-to-back Super Bowl champions are not-so-subtly threatening to leave Kansas City if they don’t end up getting their desired public funding for renovations to the 51-year-old Arrowhead Stadium. The Royals, in the midst of planning a new $2 billion ballpark, have also put out similar messaging after voters in Jackson County, Mo., nixed a tax proposal for stadium funding that Mahomes and star teammate Travis Kelce openly helped campaign for.

The Current, however, recently announced more development around their historic downtown venue that was privately financed at a cost of $117 million and was the first stadium purpose-built for a pro women’s team. The next phase will see the construction of a mixed-use riverfront district at a cost of at least $200 million in private funds. That entire project is forecast to exceed $800 million—coincidentally the same amount of money that the Port Authority of Kansas City last year approved in bonds to help the Current finance the development. 

Public Versus Private 

While local officials are involved in both situations, the difference is that the Chiefs and Royals are asking for public money while the Current will simply get a friendlier interest rate on the bonds than they would on a private loan. Sure, the roughly $800 million the Current will be spending is far less than the $2 billion the Chiefs and Royals’ failed tax proposal could have generated. But the NWSL franchise is still getting things done in a way that its local counterparts have not yet been able to.

For the Chiefs and Royals, both have leases at their current homes through early 2031, at which point they could theoretically find new homes—in the greater K.C. area or elsewhere—if they are serious about moving.