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Ah got it. That makes sense. And Indiana is a petty state. It's the reason they keep spending money on the succession plan knowing damned well it would never happen. It's all for show, which is why the Bears are an attractive target.

He's saying that Indiana would see a larger benefit than Illinois since they are going from 0 to 1 rather than 1 to 1.

Not even close. The Bears can go 0-for the next ten years and they will remain popular.

They would get just as many sell outs in Hammond as they would in Arlington Heights.

They would gain a bit more than Illinois, as they would have 50k-70k people spending their money many Sundays a year in IN that normally wouldn't. In IL, no difference between spending it in Chicago or Arlington Heights. It wouldn't be enough to come close to offestting the cost of building the stadium the Bears want and maintaining it, but still something.

#98 is back!

Quero packages with Robert makes sense for all the wrong reasons. The Sox won't eat money and will get a meh return because of it but better than just Robert as a pure salary dump.

If it is a true trade, it has to be Quero unless a guy like Lee is a throw in to another deal. Romo was a waiver claim, which tells me that is about what Lee's value is going to be.

They need to stop being so damn greedy and just put it all on MLB.TV with no blackout restrictions and be done with it. Stop making it so damn difficult to watch baseball games.

Ah shucks. Well good for Lee he'll probably find a home somewhere. The Sox have been a sneaky good org for catchers even through all the awful rosters the last 10 years.

Was on the radio in NYC yesterday. Some highlights: Wants to expand to 32 teams but only until the A's and Rays stadium issues are finalized. Wants eight, four team divisions. Does not want cities with two clubs to be in the same division (so no Sox/Cubs in the same one) Called out the media for assuming there will be games missed in 2027. (I got a laugh out of that one as he is ignoring history as to what happens when owners insist on a salary cap)

Eh, I think it is a hollow threat. Chicagoans do this loud civic pride thing, but they still buy their out of state Frango Mints at Macy's and work in the Willis Tower. The Bears is Hammond is less far out of Chicago than Arlington Heights is. They might get bad, but it isn't going to do anything lasting to the fan base.

IIRC, ND's biggest alumni base is in Chicago.

Right...and the Royals are now moving to Nashville! 😆

As was said earlier in this thread, this isn't about distance. Santa Clara is still in the Bay area, that's like moving the Bears to the burbs, not to Indiana. Nobody is saying the Bears would die if they'd move to Indiana but it'd absolutely alienate some of the fan base and hurt the Chicago brand of it all.

I don't really follow college football, but don't Purdue and Notre Dame have a sizeable Chicago fanbases? When I worked retail at a sporting goods store in the 80s, Purdue and Notre Dame merchandise was as prevalent as Illini gear.

Kansas City is one of the smallest markets in MLB. Nashville is about the same size and booming. They can probably support a team just as well as KC. The thing about Nashville, though is that the city/state just spent an insane amount of money for the new Titans stadium, so public funding for a MLB park there is questionable. On the other hand, Portland's metro area is bigger than KC's and the state of Oregon has committed $800M in public money toward an MLB stadium. Is it probable that the Royals will move? No. But I don't think the idea is laughable either - especially when there's $800M in public money sitting there. Portland is probably going to miss out on a western expansion team to Salt Lake City, so they'd be more than happy to get an existing team to move there. In the end, I think they'll get a deal done with Missouri. They were already going to offer spending 50% of the stadium costs for both the Royals AND Chiefs. Now that the Chiefs are leaving, more of that money can be directed toward getting a deal done with the Royals. No matter what, I'll be very surprised if the Royals are still playing at Kauffman Stadium after 2031. I just don't see that happening.

It’s pretty close… just one syllable too many. “You're the pride and joy of In-di-an-a! Indiana Bears, bear down!”

I don't think the Bears will ACTUALLY move, though I think Indiana is going to back up the brinks truck to try to make it happen, and extract some pretty ugly gains out of Illinois ot make it happen. Indiana doesn't care about things like it's people, infrastructure, or education, but they do care about big business. They would love nothing more than to steal the Bears, and if they can at least hurt Illinois in the process, that's a win to them.

Bears will not move to Indiana for one simple reason. They would have to do away with their song. Youre the pride and joy of Indiana does not fit. This dispute with property taxes in Arlington Heights is a hoot. They pay $3.6 million a year right now. Nothing to them.

I don't think the Bears are less of a brand than the niners. By train it is almost 2 hours.

The Niners' new stadium is something like 50 miles and a 1 hour drive away from San Francisco and is practically in San Jose. Seems like their brand is surviving just fine.

The Jets and Giants also moved there in the 70's/80's so I think it's definitely different given the time structure. The other examples aren't even close in comparison. The Bears moving to Indiana would definitely hurt the brand.

I get Chicagoans will have a meltdown at first, but they will still go to games. The rest of the country has proven that.

Because we're not talking about distance, we're talking about the actual states and their make ups and demographics and politics etc. Moving an Illinois/Chicago team to Indiana is a much bigger change than moving to the suburbs or a NY team moving to NJ. At least in my opinion.