When Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston of Fishers praised the Chicago Bears’ announcement that they will build a stadium in Hammond, it sounded as if the decision had been made. But at least one expert says we are, at best, in the third quarter of this game, not at the final whistle.
I doubt this is a good deal for Indiana, but I welcome a challenge to any position I take. So I dug in.
Start with the Bears’ own word: “advance.” The board voted to “advance” the Hammond proposal, and the team concedes the exact site is “to be selected.” A Wolf Lake parcel is presumed, but nothing is signed.
Mark Rosentraub, a sports economist at the University of Michigan, called it “the third quarter of this decision — it ain’t over till it’s over.” Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch says his state remains open to a deal, though Illinois lawmakers have adjourned until October.
Huston says the offer mirrors the financing that built Lucas Oil Stadium and kept the Colts in Indianapolis. But that kept an existing team. This is meant to lure one away.
What is Indiana putting up? A 12% tax on stadium tickets, expected to raise about $12 million a year. A doubling of Lake County’s hotel tax, from 5% to 10%. A new 1% food-and-beverage tax in Lake and Porter counties, an estimated $12 million to $18 million combined. And a Northwest Indiana Professional Sports Development Area that captures state and local sales, income and food-and-beverage taxes — even the tax on players’ game-day wages.
Those taxes fall on Lake and Porter county residents and visitors whether or not they attend a game — and the development-area capture redirects revenue that would otherwise flow to Indiana’s general fund.
And there’s this: a renegotiated Toll Road lease would hand Indiana about $700 million for stadium-related infrastructure — in exchange for letting tolls rise at least 1.5% twice a year. In effect, drivers, utilizing the Road, help pay for stadium-area roads.
The research is sobering. A 2023 study in the Journal of Economic Surveys reviewed more than 130 studies from 1974 to 2022 and confirmed a long-standing consensus: pro sports teams and stadiums have “very limited economic impacts.” Even counting civic pride and other non-cash benefits, the authors found the gains “tend to fall well short of covering public outlays.”
Three economists spoke to the Indiana offer. Michael Hicks of Ball State was blunt: “Neither of these proposals offer net benefits to taxpayers.” Moving the Bears within the same metro area is “trivial on net,” he said — the workers and the team are already here. “Tax incentives would just be a gift to the team, not the community.”
Anthony Sindone of Indiana University Northwest said both plans burden “people who have little if anything to do or benefit from a new stadium.” Still, he conceded: “While I personally think it would be cool to have the Bears move to Indiana, the return on the public investment tends to be much less than advertised.”
Not everyone agrees. Pat Obi of Purdue University Northwest calls Indiana’s Lucas Oil-style model “more sensible,” saying it allows “careful projections … and a clearer timeline for repaying” the debt. And Heather Ennis of the Northwest Indiana Forum calls the financing a proven “responsible financial framework” and the Chicago media spotlight “a powerful commercial for Northwest Indiana.”
How have these deals aged? Lucas Oil Stadium opened in 2008 at about $720 million. The Colts paid $100 million; taxpayers covered $619.6 million — 86%. As of last year, the public still owed more than $543 million, with the debt running to 2037. The old Hoosier Dome was paid off in 2020 — 13 years after it was demolished.
This is “the stadium game” — the threat to move unless one government outbids another. Some money would shift from Illinois to Indiana. But the Bears’ headquarters and practice facility would stay in the Chicago area, and whether the players’ salaries would be taxed in Indiana or Illinois is an open question.
Northwest Indiana has been hit hard by deindustrialization. I know many people in Hammond; they are good people, and if this helps them, God bless them. But whether Indiana’s taxpayers are getting a good deal comes down to how you believe public money should be handled. I have concerns; others see it differently, and I respect that.
The Bears were the first NFL team I followed, before the Colts came to Indy. I’ve laid out the facts as best I know them — not all of them, because no one would finish that piece. I only ask that you weigh them and decide.
It’s your money on the table.
