The Bears want $2 billion in public funding for a new stadium in Chicago. They’ll have to wait a while, at a minimum, for that to happen.
As explained by the Chicago Tribune, the effort to secure taxpayer money for the venue will be delayed until the fall, at the earliest.
The Illinois legislature is due to adjourn for the spring, with no action taken on the measure.
The Bears have bounced among various potential solutions, from buying their own land in the suburbs to flirting with any other interested municipality in the vicinity to settling on a fixed-roof building on the lake.
It’s unclear what the Bears will do if they don’t get the free cash they want. And it’s definitely not clear that they’ll get it.
The national mood in recent years has swung sharply against public funding of stadiums. Now, with NFL franchise values skyrocketing, taxpayers are even more inclined to tell teams to pay for their own playgrounds.
