Breaking: Bears Can’t Afford Chicago
Chicago Football is Heading to * checks notes * Indiana...?!
It’s a pretty lazy Friday afternoon here at the Sandwich offices. My co-worker sent me a four-hour-long breakdown of the history of Tyler Perry movies and, to be honest with you, my mind has been blown ever since. (You can check it out here, if you like.) So blown, that the news that came out of Chicago almost went under my radar. It’s been made official: The Chicago Bears have let the world know that they are looking to build their next stadium in Hammond, Indiana. And while the team name “Indiana Bears” sounds more like a youth soccer team, the franchise will still hold on to the Chicago nameplate.
Here’s what happened. The Chicago Bears played at Soldier Field. It was open-air and deathly cold, but it had a rugged cool factor because it was as tough as Chicago itself. The infrastructure was aging, but more importantly for football ownership, the luxury suites and experiences were falling behind. Because like have said a bunch of times on this blog, “big fans” don’t pay the bills for teams: luxury-seeking VIPs and groups do.
The team and Chicago went round and around (and around). The Bears wanted The City of Chicago to foot the bill, and Chicago said they weren’t in a position to throw a large chunk of change at a sports team. Any town knows its sports offerings are part of its culture, but also know that taxpayers are going to grumble if they have to pay for it. (While at the same time, upset if a team ups and leaves. Don’t believe me? Ask an Oakland, CA sports fan)
But Hammond, some 22 miles away from the Chicago city core, says a lot about sports today. To be clear, this isn’t like a team moving for another city entirely (Hammond is in the Chicago TV area, anyway), but when I think about “world-class” football, I’m not thinking about The Hoosier State. And why do I say “world-class” with the quotes? Well…
Let me stop you right there. Is there something that is so often said, but provides such minimal value as “world-class?” World-Class, and it’s lame af, cousin “best-in-class,” are everywhere in corporate marketing materials but tell me exactly nothing about anything. Have you ever gone to a restaurant and the food was so good you came out and said: “Dang, that was world-class!” Have you ever seen a world-class movie? Worn a pair of world-class underwear? What does it mean?!
Who cares, I guess. Because a football team that woven itself into the fabric of a city is itself movin’ up out of the hood. And that is the other issue here, for me at least. What is in a city name? For as long as I’ve been alive, New York Football teams have played in New Jersey, but we don’t think of the Giants or Jets as anything but New York teams. “The San Francisco 49ers play farther from the city they’re named after than any other NFL team, with their home games held at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, roughly 40 miles from San Francisco. But if you allow me to be cynical about it all, between social media and the rush to make global (world-class?) brands, the name of the actual city hasn’t been this relevant in my lifetime.
Sure, you may find a New York Yankees cap on the head of a Japanese national while they are riding the train in Argentina, but that used to be few and far between. With locations not even being literal, I wouldn’t be surprised that one of two things happens: 1) we’re fine with traveling hours across state lines to see local teams, or 2) teams won’t officially carry location names at all. Sort of like how the former Oakland Athletics and future Las Vegas Athletics are currently playing in Sacramento, CA, as—you guessed it—”The Athletics.”
The move is a bummer, man. Because I’m sure Hammond, Indiana, is nice, what it really is doing is overtly saying that the Chicago Bears brand is okay with leaving its gritty “team of the people” persona behind. It’s interesting because usually winning teams get to do that, not ‘Da Bears! You and your friends want to pay $150 to be in the seats so high you can hi-five ET? Get ready to rent a car or pay for an Uber, buddy. This eventual stadium, if built, will be yet another example of a country club for haves (but not the have-nots), while a game happens in the background. How many places on earth are going to serve the same rubber chicken and stuffed peppers in the exec lounges?
No, really. It’s all the same:
Now that’s world-class.