I have no doubt that would happen. Though again I doubt any of that is a material chunk of revenue. The Bears HoF and other amenities might go a long ways in aiding the fan experience, making game day more of an all-day theme park style outing, but I’d be surprised it was a huge moneymaker. The Bears already have one of the highest average ticket cost (6th today) so I’m not sure they squeeze a lot more out of that before they actually start winning some games.
I’m sure the McCaskeys want to create their equivalent to Jerry’s World (likely to get the most money from the next owner) but I firmly believe this is about vanity more than money. I don’t know how a team quantifies the prestige of a historic lakefront stadium, but someone savvy could make that more of a draw than some artificial Epcot Center style dog and pony show. Fans from around the world have attending Lambeau and Wrigley on their bucket lists…it’s an indictment of the Bears organization that Soldier Field doesn’t have the same mindshare.
I don’t think we know that’s true. Certainly Waston’s camp was leaking that there were, but we’ll never know if that was real or not. Pretty sure every GM will deny that until the cows come home. The Bears were hot to trot before the accusations but they tucked tail after.
Arlington Heights is very much NOT in the middle. It’s quite a long ways the other direction and off the highway. It’s really not in a very accessible location as far as stadiums go. Traffic up there will be a nightmare. Its basically in a subdivision and doesn’t have any hotels or corporate parks nearby.
In the same way, Baker’s team leaked that Seattle was interested, but sources closer to the team said they were never really interested. The deal with the Panthers has been in the works for some time, and that was likely a ploy to put pressure on Carolina.
As a Seahawks fan I wouldn’t have minded Baker in Seattle. He’s certainly better than what they have and if they could do a 1 year deal for a reasonable price, as Carolina did, it would be fun to see. Instead, Seattle will be making do with last week’s cheap leftovers at QB until next year’s draft.
A new or rebuilt Chicago [or adjacent sort of] stadium. Estimates from $400 million to $kythelimit. Either way, the taxpayers are going to foot it and some politicians will end up in jail. As Chicago as chilli dogs and hot beef [but not deep dish].
“Bears reject …” The city going to have to bend over more.
“NFL Sunday Ticket …” Viewers are going to have to bend over more.
[insert Kiss My Ass emoji here]
At least Sunday Ticket doesn’t really screw the fans and would give fans the chance to watch more football, there’s still the regular 3 games on broadcast TV plus you get your local team if they have the Thursday night game.
And sitting here in Bears territory, there’s a lot more teams I’d rather watch
I’m confused. What is better about Sunday Ticket that you can’t get with Game Pass?
Last season they started doing monthly subscriptions, $10 a month. All games live, as far as I could tell, plus someone else said a back catalog dating back a decade or so.
The link you shared appears to lead to the product for non-US residents, when I tried to proceed through the “learn more” process by selecting my favorite team, it informed me that I lived in an area that wasn’t covered by that product. It redirected me to the US version, which is at the link below. However, it notes that, since it’s the offseason, they aren’t currently offering subscriptions (and, so, no information on live U.S. viewing, or not).
Weird, sorry, I just googled NFL Game Pass and that was first link to come up. My bad.
Does it say on there how much it costs? Still $10 a month? Ah, I see on preview you edited in the answer of no subscriptions during the offseason. Because if I were following a team out of market, that’s 100% how I would do it if it were $10 a month.
They let you split screen or do picture in picture (or several games on multiple monitors), I usually watch whatever game I’m most interested in and Redzone at the same time, so it’s not too much of a bother to switch my attention during commercials. They used to have better software that would let you do awesome quad split screen but they redid their software and lost that feature a couple of years ago.
I found this article about last year’s version; it was $100 for an annual subscription (subscriptions run through July 31st), or $29.99 for a quarter. So, yes, about $10 a month.
It also notes that the only live games offered in the U.S. are out-of-market preseason games.
So my favorite, and likely the second best, wide receiver of the early 90’s, Sterling Sharpe made the Hall of Fame (caveat: its the Seniors committee) semi-finals. I’m excited. 5 All Pros in 7 years, and second only to Rice in most stats during his playing days, Sharpe made Don Majikowski look better than average. Sure he has to be lumped in with Gale Sayers and Terrel Davis as victims of premature career-ending injuries, but he’s definitely deserving of the Hall of Fame.
Plus, he’s like my second favorite player after Sweetness, so that should count for something.
He was often unstoppable, and put up some numbers that were, for those years, pretty huge. And, he did so despite playing with mediocre quarterbacks for the first half of his career, before Favre arrived.
But, as you note, he was forced to retire at age 29, due to a neck injury, just as the Packers were getting good. And, I think that his legacy became overshadowed, to an extent, by his younger brother, Shannon, as well as by the explosion of passing in the '90s. Plus, as good as Sterling was, he was, as you note, also only the second-best receiver of that era, behind Mr. Rice.
The full list of semi-finalists from the Seniors and Coaches/Contributors groups is in this ESPN article. In addition to Sharpe, there are four other Packers on the lists:
Coach Mike Holmgren
LaVern Dilweg, a two-way, all-pro end from the 1920s and 1930s
Cecil Isbell, a back and passer (before the days of quarterbacks) from the late '30s and early '40s – he was the league’s leading passer several times, but retired after only five seasons
Jack Vainisi, a Packers scout and personnel director in the 1950s, who drafted or acquired many of the stars of Vince Lombardi’s teams, and was instrumental in convincing Lombardi to take the job as Packers coach/GM
To me, beyond Sharpe, the one guy I really would like to see make it in from the big list is Bengals quarterback Ken Anderson. I find it interesting to see Isbell and Dilweg (and, for that matter, Vainisi) under consideration; one would think that their cases have been considered many times previously.
I always thought “what could have been” with that guy and Favre had he stayed healthy for at least a few more years. His brother got it right at his own acceptance ceremony speech. That was about one of the few things that got me in the feels watching Shannon say those things, and I typically dislike his oversized personality character he plays with a guy like Skip Bayless.