A 2024 5th round pick AND they’re splitting the salary. That’s a steal.
For those who came in late: last fall, the Bears agreed to purchase the grounds of Arlington International Racecourse, a thoroughbred horse track in northwest suburban Arlington Heights, with the intent of building a new stadium (among other likely amenities) on the property.
The city of Chicago (with which the Bears have a lease at Soldier Field, running through 2033) is still trying to convince the Bears to stay in the city. They announced today that they are looking at putting a dome on Soldier Field. As per WGN-TV:
Soldier Field, which originally opened in 1924, and which has been the Bears’ home stadium since 1971, underwent a major renovation for the Bears in 2002-3. That renovation, which placed a modern-style stadium within the building’s original colonnades, received mixed reviews, and led to the stadium’s de-listing as a National Historic Landmark. Also, at a capacity of 61,500 for football, it is the smallest stadium in the NFL.
As a Chicagoan, not only No but Hell no to a dome for Soldier Field.
I’m sure it’ll happen.
Domes are shameful for northern teams. There are always talks about putting a dome on Cleveland stadium or building a new domed stadium and most people oppose it because you should embrace cold weather climates for football, not avoid them.
I think Mayfield being traded to the Panthers may indicate that Watson is getting an 8 game suspension or less. If he was suspended the whole year, I’d have to think they’d try to do something to get Mayfield to play this year. Trading him away suggests to me that they think they won’t lose Watson the whole year.
I don’t know. I think the relationship between Mayfield and the Browns was ruined beyond all repair even before they traded for Watson, but certainly after, and there was no way he was going to report.
But then again, I don’t know as much about football as I do about, say, the NBA, MLB, or professional wrestling.
It seemed obvious to me that it was in Baker’s best interest to come back healthy and play well for the Browns in his final contract year so he could get a big contract from another team. None of the teams he would’ve been traded to would’ve made him look better than the Browns did, and no one is giving him a big new contract because of his injured performance last year. It actually seemed like a perfect situation if people could keep their egos in check - Baker gets to make an audition for another team, Browns get a competent fill in during the suspension.
Domes allow for stadiums to generate concert and event revenue all year long. That’s about the only thing that matters to NFL owners.
If CMC is healthy he can make any quarterback look good. The ultimate safety valve.
Poor Sam Darnold. Career backup?
It was going to be them or the Seahawks. Those were his only realistic options for a starting job.
A dome for the Bears makes me want to puke. But the realities of the economics make it really difficult to see it not happening one way or another. I seriously don’t want the Bears to leave the lakefront but if they are going to build a dome, fuck it…move to the burbs. Having a dome completely misses the point of having a stadium downtown on the lake in the middle of the museum campus.
Agreed, if they want to chase the almighty dollar, then just go to the burbs and be done with it. They’d also get the advantage of not having to deal with the rough and tumble world of Chicago politics anytime they want something. I’m sure Arlington Heights will rubber stamp whatever they want and the check book will always be open.
I don’t really think concerts are a huge factor, there’s few artists that merit a stadium tour, those tours are almost always in summer anyway. If a musical artist is gonna spend the money for a stadium show, they’re gonna have to hit cities which don’t have a domed/retractable roof stadium anyway.
I think Indianapolis does just fine with a dome. Well, retractable roof. I’m not sure if you’re lumping those under a generic label meaning any covered/coverable field.
Out of curiosity, are there a lot of concerts at Lucas Oil stadium during the winter when there’s a bunch of snow on the ground?
I tried to Google it but it’s summer now so kind of hard to find. I did find a very weird press page touting how it was ‘best in class’ as an entertainment venue but then went on to say that football games are the most common entertainment there. That doesn’t sound right. The old Giants Stadium had more concerts in a month than football games all year and two football teams shared the stadium. (I’m assuming it’s similar for MetLife but I have no idea.)
I’m thinking that concerts in the winter in cold climates just aren’t really a thing, dome or not.
That might be due more to the location? Probably a lot easier to fill an NFL stadium for a concert near NY than in Indianapolis.
If I had to hazard a guess, Soldier Field probably has more non-football events scheduled, including stadium concerts, than Lucas Oil
Googling the question, it does seem like summer concerts are a thing and winter concerts are not. Bullet point reasons are less daylight in the winter, traditional family holidays in the winter, and school is out in the summer.
EDIT: As for the point about location, that’s fair. For whatever reason I thought Indianapolis was much closer to Chicago than it is. Google says it’s a 3-hour drive. That’s not super close.
I used to make that drive every summer, for the GenCon gaming convention in Indy. Yup, it’s about 3 hours, assuming no traffic; the area of I-80/I-94 in northwestern Indiana is notorious for bad traffic, often making it an even longer trip.
And, I suspect that most musical acts which tour through Indianapolis are hitting a venue in the Chicago area, as well.
As far as the Bears, and Arlington Heights vs. Chicago:
- The Bears don’t own Soldier Field; the city of Chicago (specifically, the Park District) does. That’s sometimes led to conflicts and disputes in the past, and I imagine that the team likes the idea of having complete control over their stadium.
- Having control of a big chunk of property around their stadium, and being able to develop that into other attractions (i.e., revenue streams) is likely also very attractive to them.
- I suspect that the Bears would love to host a Super Bowl, both for the revenue, as well as the prestige. There’s only been one Super Bowl held in a cold-weather, open-air stadium (SB XLVIII, at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey), and the original impetus for choosing to hold the game in the New York area was the aftermath of 9/11. Even if Soldier Field got a dome, it only seats 61,500, and one of the NFL’s criteria for selecting a Super Bowl site is that the stadium must have seating for at least 70,000.
If I remember correctly, that was almost a problem. There was the potential for a big snowstorm the day of the game, but it ended up being mild weather and wasn’t an issue. Still, that’s the kind of thing you have to worry about in a venue like that.
(Also, for personal reasons, that’s my favorite football game I have ever watched. It still gives me happy feelings years later.)
I remember it the same as you.
The box score for the game notes that it was 49 degrees at game time, so they did luck out in that regard.
The Wikipedia entry for the game also notes that a winter storm rolled into the area a few hours after the game ended, dropping 8" of snow. Personally, I think a Super Bowl in the snow would have have been awesome, but the NFL seems to generally want (and hope) that weather will not be a factor in the game.