Indiana’s super-sweet Bears offer
Monday, Mar 16, 2026 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Click here to read the new Indiana law so you can see for yourself that this long Twitter thread makes some good points about why Indiana is in a very good position to lure the Bears, and why it has some local grease behind it…
The Bears vs. Hammond debate is missing the most important thing: almost nobody has actually read SB 27. I read it carefully. What’s in there isn’t a stadium bill. It’s something far more extraordinary. Let me show you.
SB 27 creates a “Professional Sports Development Area” — a Bears-controlled campus financed by Indiana bonds, exempt from Indiana taxes. The statute defines what qualifies for that campus. The language is where this gets interesting.
Three categories of facility qualify. A stadium. Training facilities. And — this is the one — facilities “used in whole or in PART to manage and operate the professional team.” That phrase “in part” has no floor. No minimum percentage.
It also contains two words that change the entire geometry of the deal: “noncontiguous tracts.” The Bears’ footprint doesn’t have to be one location. It can be multiple separate parcels scattered across the entire city of Hammond.
Let that sink in. A Bears analytics office where team staff work regularly? “Used in part to manage the team.” Indiana bonds finance it. Zero property taxes on it for 40 years. Bears pay nothing to build it.
A training facility used for camp 8 weeks per year can operate as a youth sports complex the other 46. A player medical center can also be a public clinic. A team hotel dormitory is also just a hotel. Same buildings. Multiple revenue streams.
Here’s where the Bears’ public denial fits perfectly. They said Halas Hall isn’t moving. That’s completely true. It’s also completely compatible with building practice facilities, management buildings, and medical centers throughout Hammond.
“Used in PART” means the Bears don’t need a majority use. They need genuine, documented, regular Bears operational activity in each building. The remaining floors? Commercial subtenants paying rent. That income flows back to the franchise. […]
[Hammond Mayor Tom McDermott] said he wants “a section of our city” called Bearsville. Not a marketing brand. An actual statutory designation — noncontiguous PSDA parcels across Hammond, each tax-exempt, each bond-financed, each eventually owned by the Bears at near-zero cost.
The purchase option is in Section 13(b)(5) of the actual bill. Bears can buy every capital improvement “for a price equal to the amount required to pay all indebtedness.” On fully amortized 40-year bonds that price approaches zero. (lease to own) […]
The city owns hundreds of vacant lots. Many are listed through the Hammond Economic Development Department — the same office that’s been negotiating with the Bears. Several listings show Aaron McDermott — the mayor’s son — as the listing agent. […]
At Year 40 the bonds are retired, the TIF winds down, and Hammond has: a transformed lakefront, a commercial district that didn’t exist, a population that followed the jobs, and a tax base that didn’t exist before. The Bears own their campus. The city keeps everything else.
Lots more, so click here.
- Homebody - Monday, Mar 16, 26 @ 1:53 pm:
I’m very much on the “no sweetheart deals for billionaires” wagon, but I have no problem with Hammond wanting to do this. Their incentives are very different than Chicago or Arlington Heights, given how much of Hammond is city-owned empty lots. If they think this deal is a net benefit, then sure, go for it. Good for them.
The Jets and Giants play in New Jersey. The 49ers are in Santa Clara. The Cowboys are in Arlington. The Dolphins are in Miami Gardens. It isn’t a big deal if the Bears are in Hammond, in my view.
Let Indiana give away their tax dollars if they want.
- Slats - Monday, Mar 16, 26 @ 1:57 pm:
Cute piece of legislative origami, but it doesn’t change the fundamentals. The Bears don’t move for tax-free office space. They move for a stadium deal that prints money. And the one place where they already control the land and the development is Arlington Heights. Everything else right now looks a lot more like leverage than a destination.
- Roadrager - Monday, Mar 16, 26 @ 1:59 pm:
And that is why Tom.McDermott so bravely intoned, “Oh no, the lawyer is coming.”
They want to make Hammond into a Chicago Bears company town, and they are welcome to go ahead and do it. So I guess the question is why the Bears haven’t jumped at the offer yet and are still trying to wring everything out of Arlington Heights and the state of Illinois. And I think there are multiple possible answers to that question.
- Larry Bowa Jr. - Monday, Mar 16, 26 @ 2:01 pm:
We already knew Indiana’s political class has absolute contempt for its citizens and that donations to the Indians legislature get you the laws written as you like them.
The question is whether the heirs and heiresses looking to siphon billions in public money before they offload the Bears for max profit are equally sick and twisted. Personally I don’t think they have the guts to make it the Hammond Bears but it would be amusing to watch the attempt.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Mar 16, 26 @ 2:03 pm:
===They move for a stadium deal that prints money===
That’s in there, too, but I couldn’t confirm https://x.com/Maestermagoo/status/2032806705935900899
Conservative 40-year comparison:
Hammond NPV of profits: ~$8.3B
Arlington (with PILOT + $855M): ~$4.25B
Difference: +$4B present value
And that’s before the Year 40 terminal asset acquisition where the Bears get everything for near-zero.
Arlington gives ownership from Day 1 with ~$80M/yr in PILOT taxes and ~$130M/yr in debt service. Hammond gives deferred ownership with $0 taxes and ~$44M/yr in debt service. The $86M annual difference compounds brutally over 40 years.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Mar 16, 26 @ 2:09 pm:
===We already knew Indiana’s political class has absolute contempt for its citizens ===
That’s also addressed in the thread. I encourage you again to read the rest https://x.com/Maestermagoo/status/2032807020122759588
The bond taxes hit visitors, not residents: 12% ticket tax, 1% food and beverage, doubled innkeeper’s tax. Illinois fans crossing the state line to watch the Bears in Indiana fund Hammond’s urban renewal every time they buy a ticket. The irony is real.
- 47th Ward - Monday, Mar 16, 26 @ 2:13 pm:
How much will the Skyway tolls be if this happens? Those billionaire investors have to eat too.
- Candy Dogood - Monday, Mar 16, 26 @ 2:15 pm:
===Arlington gives ownership from Day 1 ===
They can also keep Arlington and use it for something besides a stadium.
===SB 27 creates a “Professional Sports Development Area” ===
This is also how Hammond could wind up with a different NFL Franchise. Suddenly the Jaguars or the Bengals want to move.
The Chicago Metropolitan area is huge. Why not come get a piece?
Heck, some folks are already used to rooting for cardinals of one kind or another.
- 48th Ward Heel - Monday, Mar 16, 26 @ 2:18 pm:
Very interesting and very optimistic. Under the absolute best case scenario, they could open a state-of-the-art medical facility of regional or even national quality, reliably fill the hotel with people traveling for treatment or to support loved ones, and induce medical professionals to settle in the area, all of which supports new retail and office space.
You miss that by thiiis much, and the franchise is stuck as the landlord of a low-margin hospital in a working-class region with a cordoned-off Bears wing, a hotel that depends on eight games a year plus whoever you can get to perform at the Swamperdome and the western copy of Cleveland’s Flats. And I’m not sure I trust the McCaskeys to produce the next Mayo Clinic out of thin air.
- Jocko - Monday, Mar 16, 26 @ 2:21 pm:
==Illinois fans crossing the state line to watch the Bears==
That’s the rub. What superfan can afford the tolls, the PSL, and the higher prices? There is also the question of safety when the night games let out.
- Save Ferris - Monday, Mar 16, 26 @ 2:25 pm:
His numbers are bad. He’s also relying on an NFL insider statements (Shaefter: The Bears are broke!”) that the insider restated to mean only in terms of salary cap availability.
His numbers are only AH stadium vs. IN stadium plus ancillary. AH ancillary, a $3 billion entertainment and rental residence area would far exceed the NPVs he’s talking about. And dividing Bears management between Lake Forest and some sort of remote business office is silly.
He also states the $197mm purchase price of Arlington is a “sunk cost.” Ludicrous. 327 acres of prime suburban land has zero value?
Valiant effort, but it’s still bumble fudge IN. Until there is a signed IN agreement and a FOR SALE 327 ACRES sign, this is all meaningless.
- Slats - Monday, Mar 16, 26 @ 2:33 pm:
Interesting 40-year model, but it assumes the Bears optimize purely for maximum profit. Historically the McCaskeys haven’t really operated that way. Arlington Heights is land they already own and control, right in the middle of where their fans and assets already are. Hammond still depends on a public financing structure and a lot of assumptions that I’d love to interrogate.
- very old soil - Monday, Mar 16, 26 @ 2:37 pm:
“A training facility used for camp 8 weeks per year can operate as a youth sports complex the other 46.” Move to Indiana and you get two extra weeks to enjoy “The region”.
- Think Again - Monday, Mar 16, 26 @ 2:42 pm:
=why the Bears haven’t jumped at the offer yet=
Waiting for best and last from IL - To me, the calculation that really matters is whether JB wants to push Dem leadership in Springlield to save “face”/political clout?
- Friendly Bob Adams - Monday, Mar 16, 26 @ 2:45 pm:
If Indiana wants to give away money for 40 years, that’s tough to compete with. Let them have the Bears.
I prefer that Illinois not try to match the giveaway.
- Old IL Dude - Monday, Mar 16, 26 @ 2:50 pm:
I make it to maybe 1 Bears game every 4 years. I’ve been to maybe 10-15 Bears games at Soldier Field, and probably watched close to 150 on TV. If they move to Hammond, it really doesn’t matter to me — it’s still Chicagoland. I’d prefer to save my tax dollars for better transportation.
- Ares - Monday, Mar 16, 26 @ 2:54 pm:
Hammond is a health care desert after the closure of St. Margaret Hospital in downtown Hammond. St Meg’s used to be next to the Hammond shopping district, which suffered lost traffic from a nearby at-grade crossing where 6 railroad tracks converged. By the time INDOT built an overpass over the crossing, the economy had cratered, and has yet to recover.
- Lincoln Lad - Monday, Mar 16, 26 @ 3:02 pm:
No way they don’t go to Indiana, it’s too sweet of a deal. It’s nice to feel wanted too.
- TNR - Monday, Mar 16, 26 @ 3:09 pm:
Lots of interesting stuff there, but this?:
“Healthcare restored through a Bears medical center.”
Does he really think a Bears athletic training center is gonna morph into something that can replace the safety net hospital Hammond lost?