INDIANAPOLIS – The Chicago Bears are coming to Indiana, and the Indianapolis Colts are furious!
Do me a favor and count the lies told – in your opinion – in the previous sentence. Let’s start with what we know.
The Colts are furious!
Nah. They’re not. Seriously. Just spoke with Colts chief operating officer Pete Ward, and he assured me the Colts are fine with whatever the Bears do. Does that feel like a lie to you? It won’t, after I tell you what Ward told me.
News: Senate Republicans write bill to lure Chicago Bears to Indiana with stadium authority
But first let’s head back to that first sentence, and see if there’s a lie told here:
The Chicago Bears are coming to Indiana…
At this moment, knowing what we know, we cannot call that a lie. Such an ugly word, “lie.” Let’s find another word for it, a prettier word. Hey, I know:
Extortion.
Chicago Bears coming to Northwest Indiana?
That’s what this feels like, doesn’t it? The Bears, threatening to move out of Chicago – out of Illinois – and into northwest Indiana?
We have two options here – you, me, Chicago, the Colts, The Region, everyone – and one of those options, sure, is to take the flirtation between the Bears and Northwest Indiana at face value. One thing is sure: Indiana would love to get its grubby little hands on the Bears, and please, if you can’t find the humor in this story (the Indiana Bears?!?) look harder. Because this feels funny, even as it feels like business as usual for an NFL franchise.
They’re printing money, NFL franchises. You know this. The Bears, for example, are valued by Forbes at $8.2 billion, ranking seventh in the NFL. (The Colts are worth $5.9 billion, 26th in the NFL.) How could the Chicago Bears risk all of that value by leaving Chicago for Hammond, Indiana? They couldn’t. They wouldn’t.
You know this.
Now, maybe Indiana Gov. Mike Braun has added this to the growing list of things he doesn’t know. Or maybe, just maybe, Braun has finally found an issue he can use to galvanize his state:
Let’s go get the Bears!
Braun follows his political North Star, President Trump, who has claimed Venezuela and the Panama Canal and the Gulf of America, and has his eyes on Greenland. If some is good, more is better – right? ‘Merica!
Indiana already has one NFL franchise, but two would be better. ‘Ndiana!
Our second option: Understanding the cynical game both sides are playing.
If this is me giving Braun more credit than he deserves, shame on me, but this feels like Braun cosplaying as dealmaker to increase his popularity. Because when the Bears announce in the coming months that they are staying in Chicago, staying for whatever sweet stadium deal the state offers the McCaskey family, Braun will be able to look his Region voters in the eye and say: “Hey, I heard you. I tried.”
The Bears have been in Chicago since 1920 and aren’t leaving for another state, but they’re not just playing around with the folks in Northwest Indiana. They’ve been using those folks, getting their hopes up since Dec. 17 when Bears President and CFO Kevin Warren said the team would expand its search for a new stadium site to the wider Chicagoland region – including northwest Indiana.
Warren knows how this story ends: With Chicago politicians, getting the message loud and clear from their voters, coming to the franchise – hats in hand – and offering the Bears a new money printing press, er, a new stadium.
And it will conclude down the road when NFL commissioner Roger Goodell – who played his role in the charade this past week by visiting a proposed stadium site in Northwest Indiana – grants the Bears a Super Bowl as soon as their brand-new stadium is ready.
The Bad News Bears are more real than the Indiana Bears – and Buttermaker isn’t walking through that door.
Indiana Bears? Get serious.
That hasn’t stopped lawmakers in the Indiana Senate from authoring a bill that makes the state’s bid to attract the Bears look legitimate. Nor has it stopped the Bears from calling Senate Bill 27 “a significant milestone.”
How do the Colts feel about all of this? They feel fine. That’s what Pete Ward told me, dropping some knowledge you probably didn’t know along the way. Here we go.
“By league rules, (Northwest Indiana) is Bears territory,” Ward was telling me Friday morning. “It’s the Bears’ domain. The Colts can’t even market that area, even though it’s Indiana.”
Here, I’m doing what you would’ve done – and interrupting the ever-loving HECK out of the chief operating officer of the Indianapolis Colts.
By league rules? That’s what I’m asking Ward. Does the league have a specific rule about Chicago owning exclusive rights to Northwest Indiana?
“It’s a league rule for every city – they have the rights to the 75-mile radius of downtown,” Ward says. “As I understand, (the proposed stadium location) is 2 miles inside the border – and if you look on a map, it’s clearly in the suburbs of Chicago. And we’ve always been respectful of those rules.”
The Colts’ mascot Blue, who travels the state to visit schools and spread his message of positivity and Colts football, doesn’t go to Hammond, 30 miles from Downtown Chicago (and about 160 miles from Downtown Indianapolis). Colts cheerleaders don’t perform at events in Gary, 29 miles from Soldier Field (and 150 miles from Lucas Oil Stadium). The Colts, Ward is telling me, cannot and do not purchase advertisements in newspapers within that 75-mile radius.
Who knew, right?
The Colts and Cincinnati Bengals have a similarly “respectful” relationship, Ward says, involving the area of southeast Indiana. Milan is 55 miles from Downtown Cincinnati – and 80 miles from Downtown Indianapolis. So Milan, home of the greatest sports story in Indiana history, is a Cincinnati Bengals city.
Just how the rules are written, though Ward says teams cooperate when the geography demands it. Think of the New York Jets, New York Giants and Philadelphia Eagles – or the San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Raiders, before the Raiders moved to Las Vegas.
“We wish the Bears all the best,” Ward said. “If they were talking about relocating deeper into the state, we might feel differently – but they’re clearly talking about the Chicago suburbs. It’s come up before, the possibility of the Bears moving to Northwest Indiana, so this is not unprecedented. We wish them luck.”
As for me, I’m wishing the best for folks in Northwest Indiana – for eager businesses and Bears fans alike – because they’re being jerked around by billionaires.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Doyel: Colts not threatened by Indiana Bears – but it’s not happening
Reporting by Gregg Doyel, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
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