CHICAGO | Da Bears | Now these shitheads wanna drive their clown car over to Indiana?

[SIGSEGV]

Maybe Pritzker can buy the Bears. There aren't enough things named after the Pritzker family in Chicago.

[Chi-Sky21]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Maybe Pritzker can buy the Bears. There aren't enough things named after the Pritzker family in Chicago.

Well, when you pay for them you can name them after yourself.

[Jstange059]

https://vimeo.com/1161553510/764e833793?fl=pl&fe=vl

Video of the Portage, Indiana proposal

Some key frames from the video:

[ardecila]

I'll grant them, the Portage site is the most transit-accessible Indiana site we've seen so far. Assuming the proposed site plan gets built, it is charitably just 1/2 mile walk from the South Shore station to the stadium gate, which is shorter than the existing walk from CTA at Roosevelt to Soldier Field, and about the same as the walk from Metra would be at Arlington Park. But South Shore remains difficult for Illinoisans to actually use, since it doesn't connect to the most well-used Metra lines.

On the other hand - Portage? This is 40 miles from the Loop, in the opposite direction from where most of the ticketholders live. Fans from Naperville or Elgin will have to drive 80 miles. They're really setting themselves up to be the worst-located stadium in the NFL, except maybe Green Bay which is a special case for several reasons. Comparisons to NY/NJ are pretty foolish, the Meadowlands is just 8 miles from Times Square. On a Sunday morning, that's just a 15 minute drive... plus many of the Jets and Giants fans live in NJ already.

[Danillo]

Originally Posted by ardecila

They're really setting themselves up to be the worst-located stadium in the NFL, except maybe Green Bay which is a special case for several reasons.

I'm curious why you think Lambeau is the worst located stadium in the league, unless you're just saying that anywhere in Green Bay would be the worst because the city is so small and such an outlier for pro sports teams.

[nomarandlee]

Originally Posted by Danillo

I'm curious why you think Lambeau is the worst located stadium in the league, unless you're just saying that anywhere in Green Bay would be the worst because the city is so small and such an outlier for pro sports teams.

I'll answer that since I agree with the take. Basically, Lambeua is just a ho-hum location-based service for what is a decidedly regional team. The stadium could just as easily be held in Appleton, Rhinelander, or Lacrosse. In that way, the Packers/Green Bay act more as a major college program/town that draws from hours away within its own state, compared to the rest of the NFL. Not unlike the programs that sit in Baton Rouge, Tuscaloosa, or Happy Valley.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Danillo

I'm curious why you think Lambeau is the worst located stadium in the league, unless you're just saying that anywhere in Green Bay would be the worst because the city is so small and such an outlier for pro sports teams.

It makes zero sense on paper, the team is just there for historic reasons. And because Green Bay is such a small market, Lambeau doesn't attract a lot of major concerts or other events besides Packer games. Modern stadiums usually count on those events to justify the cost of the stadium; football games can't do it alone, especially when taxpayer funding is limited.

If Wisconsin had no NFL teams and they were awarded an expansion team, the stadium would be in Milwaukee, no question about it. But, because of the Packers history, the fans (i.e. shareholders) are spread all over the state and not just around Milwaukee or Madison.

[Danillo]

So it's that there's a stadium anywhere in Green Bay, not where within Green Bay the stadium is located.

What would be almost funny if it weren't so ridiculous is that if you consider Milwaukee to be the Packers main market (which is largely true), the drive time for a Milwaukeean to Lambeau wouldn't be that much worse than the drive time for someone from the NW suburbs trying to get to Portage, IN.

[nomarandlee]

Originally Posted by Danillo

So it's that there's a stadium anywhere in Green Bay, not where within Green Bay the stadium is located.

What would be almost funny if it weren't so ridiculous is that if you consider Milwaukee to be the Packers main market (which is largely true), the drive time for a Milwaukeean to Lambeau wouldn't be that much worse than the drive time for someone from the NW suburbs trying to get to Portage, IN.

Probably true. In the Portage case, traffic would likely be much worse and much less scenic.

[DCReid]

The Chicago Bears are continuing to make noises about moving to Indiana.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/articles/bears-indiana-governor-progress-being-144301670.html

[Crawford]

No money for healthcare, daycare, clean water or air, transit, schools or housing. Plenty of money for billionaire jerks lighting taxpayer dollars on fire.

[ardecila]

For Indiana, absolutely.

For Illinois - I'm proud that we're making big progress on all those things, while giving pro sports teams some much-needed pushback on their bottomless greed.

[sentinel]

Fine, go across the border, but the McFuckskeys should be prepared to move the 🞵🞵🞵🞵 out of the state completely; they can get fucked about this, considering they’ll be torching a lot of goodwill from many fans in Illinois, all because Indiana’s taxpayers are held hostage by their greedy state government.

But karma’s a 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵: I want to see a new team in Chicago now. Similar to the Packers setup, a community-owned team, using a renovated Soldier field (with a fixed glass roof, attached to the exiting structure). Call it the “Chicago Phoenix”…since it creates an uneven number of teams fo the NFC, the City can work with another city that doesn’t have a team (San Diego, Austin, Portland, etc), for the AFC; which forces the NFL to expand further.
Burn it to the ground and start from scratch

[DCReid]

Portage and Iowa join battle for new Bears stadium

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IQczVcfYs0

[Busy Bee]

What a positively surreal 🞵🞵🞵🞵 show. More than half of me wants to put the Bears on the funeral pyre and destroy all memory of them. Interestingly I have the same opinion about our current federal government.

[SteelMonkey]

^100%

[urbanpln]

Originally Posted by ardecila

It makes zero sense on paper, the team is just there for historic reasons. And because Green Bay is such a small market, Lambeau doesn't attract a lot of major concerts or other events besides Packer games. Modern stadiums usually count on those events to justify the cost of the stadium; football games can't do it alone, especially when taxpayer funding is limited.

If Wisconsin had no NFL teams and they were awarded an expansion team, the stadium would be in Milwaukee, no question about it.

Do you think not having the Packers in Milwaukee causes Wisconsin to miss out on significant tourism, media attention, and economic benefits?

[TREPYE]

Originally Posted by DCReid

The Chicago Bears are continuing to make noises about moving to Indiana.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/articles/bears-indiana-governor-progress-being-144301670.html

The owners of the team are more than welcome to take the team to another locale.... but the name Bears and the logo stays in Chicago. They wanna move, go ahead, but the brand built by Chicago should STAY in Chicago.

[Danillo]

Originally Posted by urbanpln

Do you think not having the Packers in Milwaukee causes Wisconsin to miss out on significant tourism, media attention, and economic benefits?

It's hard to imagine it does. How many NFL stadiums are as much of a bucket list destination for NFL teams as Lambeau? That's a lot to do with the stadium, but it's the setting, too. If the Packers had moved to Milwaukee (for more than the 2-3 games a year they used to play there), it more likely they'd be perceived like, say, the Bills. Nothing against Buffalo, but I'm guessing there's much more football-tourism in Green Bay than Buffalo.

[Crawford]

I doubt it. I bet NFL superfans follow their teams on the road, regardless of destination. I remember being in Cincy and the hotel was packed with visiting team superfans, from a relatively obscure team visiting a relatively obscure opponent.

And the idea of Green Bay as some hallowed ground is not one shared nationally. The NFL is a very young league. It doesn't have tradition like MLB.