Queue the Twilight Zone music. While up is threatening to replace down, the cow is preparing to jump over the moon. And who’s to say Martians aren’t landing right now on the Golden Gate Bridge?
I mean, the state of Indiana is close to having two NFL franchises when the senses remain numb that it has even one.
So anything is possible.
As somebody born and raised in South Bend, Indiana, home of the University of Notre Dame, I know the overwhelming sports vibes of the state for nearly forever involved Indiana University basketball, that 500-mile race every Memorial Day Weekend in Indianapolis, all things high school hoops called “Hoosier Hysteria” and Fighting Irish football, of course.
Pro sports?
Not so much.
Well, not at all, but we had the Cubs, the White Sox, the Bulls and the Blackhawks about 95 miles to the east in Chicago.
We also had the Bears.
Now Indiana has the Bears, period.
Almost.
To hear Bears officials tell it, their team eventually will bolt the Chicago limits after more than 100 years for Hammond, just west of the Illinois state line, and remember: 42 years ago, the Colts used 14 moving vans to sneak out of Baltimore after 31 NFL seasons for Indianapolis in the middle of a snowy March night.
This tells you what your local government can get with an aggressive mayor backed by the governor and the state legislature.
Oh, and in the case of Bears officials, $1 billion worth of incentives from Indiana politicians didn’t exactly hurt their desire to sing “On the Banks of the Wabash Far Away,” you now, Indiana’s state song.
The Hammond Bears? Uh uh.
They’ll likely remain the Chicago Bears, just like the Giants and the Jets kept “New York” in front of their names after they left for East Rutherford, New Jersey in 1976 and 1984 respectively to what was state-of-the-art Giants Stadium erected for $78 million.
Both teams later transferred in 2010 to MetLife Stadium, which was built nearby for $1.6 billion.
Well, given inflation and all, Bears officials want a $5 billion stadium project that consists of a mixed-use village featuring everything from restaurants to hotels to entertainment beyond blocking and tackling. They talked of doing so in Arlington Heights, Illinois, which isn’t Chicago, but at least it was in the same state. The Bears even spent $197.2 million in 2023 for the 326 acres of the former Arlington International Racecourse.
Then came disputes between Bears officials and Illinois leaders over property tax valuations and legislative support.
Enter Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr., Indiana governor Mike Braun and the sugar daddies in the Indiana statehouse.
The bottom line: For a stadium owned by the recently formed Northwest Indiana Stadium Board and leased by the Bears, Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston said the state would provide the Bears $1 billion in public funding, and Bears officials said they would throw in $2 billion.
According to the Indiana Capital Journal, “Huston said the state would back the bonds sold to finance construction of the stadium with the state budget — similar to the process used to build Lucas Oil Stadium for the Indianapolis Colts. But hospitality taxes would pay the annual bond payments.
“He also said Indiana would invest in infrastructure around the stadium using money from an amended or renegotiated lease of the Indiana Toll Road. That 2006 lease originally brought $3.85 billion to the state for highway projects. It was last amended in 2018 when the state received an additional $1 billion in exchange for a 35% rate hike on commercial vehicles.”
Indiana has been here before.
I know. During the late 1970s, when I worked for The Cincinnati Enquirer, the late William Hudnut set the foundation for the Colts’ shocker out of Baltimore a few years later when he told me and others that he planned as then-Indianapolis mayor to build a dome stadium in the city.
He said he would do so to lure an NFL team to town.
Not coincidentally, when Hudnut found a mixture and private money to turn the $82 million Hoosier Dome into reality in 1982, the seats just (ahem) happened to be Colts blue.
You know the rest.
Colts owner Bob Irsay sprinted out of nowhere for the Midwest after six consecutive losing seasons in Baltimore. Home crowds averaged nearly 20,000 folks shy of capacity at Memorial Stadium. It also didn’t make Irsay wish to stick around for the nostalgic days of Johnny Unitas, John Mackey and Gino Marchetti since the state of Maryland boasted of seizing his team through imminent domain.
The Colts flirted with Indiana secretly, but the Bears are doing so boldly, and none of this makes sense.
Actually, it does.
When it comes to luring NFL franchises to Indiana, the state’s movers and shakers have the will, the cash and the formula.
