The Illinois legislature failed to pass a measure that would keep the Bears in the state. The door is now open for the Bears to exit for Indiana.
“The reality is that I wasn’t willing to give up billions of dollars of taxpayer money in order to give it to a billionaire-owned family, or team, and believe very much that the incentives that we provide for businesses are to be similar to the incentives we provide to this type of business,” Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said Monday, via Mitchell Armentrout of the Chicago Sun-Times.
“As much of an emotional connection as many of us have to the Bears, and to keeping them in the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois, [the] No. 1 principle is we’re not going to foist this on the taxpayers of the state of Illinois.”
If the Bears leave for Indiana, that will be foisted onto Pritzker’s permanent record.
There’s a chance that Indiana was and is a bluff. The fact that the Bears said they’re evaluating options in Arlington Heights and Indiana when there is no current option in Arlington Heights suggests that Indiana is all about leverage.
If it is, it isn’t working.
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