Soldier Field Is A Dump — Of Course Bears Are Moving To Suburbs

CHICAGO — Let's face it, Soldier Field is kind of a dump. Depending on where you're standing, it looks like a toilet seat or a spaceship atop a Roman coliseum. Inside, the concourses are too narrow. Lines for beers and the bathroom, in that order, are always too long. The "cheap" seats can trigger vertigo.

On Bears game days, traffic is terrible whether you're coming or going. You've got to walk about a mile from the Red Line to get there. There isn't enough overpriced parking for tailgating, which with the last several Bears starting quarterbacks has been more fun than watching the game.

For all those reasons, it's hard to blame the 77 percent of readers who replied to a Patch poll in support of the Bears' plans to break their Soldier Field lease and build a new stadium in the North White Suburbs — where most of the team's fan base lives anyway.

It still breaks my heart a little that the Chicago Bears actually plan to leave behind the city in its trademarked name that nobody — not even a big-city mayor — can take from the team as punishment for moving to Arlington Heights.

But that's as unfortunate a reality as drafting phenom quarterback Justin Fields to play in Matt Nagy's ineffective offense behind the Bears' sack-friendly offensive line, a trusted source told me.

The Bears' long-term plans for a future stadium simply do not include Soldier Field. And the prospects are thin for securing a spot for a new stadium in the city limits, he said.

The Bears aren't interested in picking a long legal fight with Friends of the Parks, the civic group that successfully blocked Rahm Emanuel from allowing George Lucas to build a museum in the Soldier Field parking lot.

The former Arlington International Racecourse — a "premier property" in the Midwest — offers the team a chance to follow the lead of other NFL franchises that ditched leases with municipal landlords to build suburban football palaces and bolster their bottom line.

Considering the Bears' penchant for on-the-field mediocrity, it's not a surprise that the team plans to get spendy on a stadium instead of building a Super Bowl-caliber squad, or at least a team that can beat the Green Bay Packers.

So we should expect the Bears will break their Soldier Field lease with the Chicago Park District, a document that's packed with clout contracts for security, facility management and hampers the team's opportunity to make money other than on game days.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot says she's got a plan to turn Soldier Field into a vibrant, year-round, entertainment district that could entice the team to stay on the lakefront.

And if the mayor can muster a Hail Mary — or a trick play with help from spendthrift state lawmakers in her huddle — I hope she heaves a Hollywood-worthy long-ball for the win.

On Wednesday, she told reporters that her door is open if team owners want to discuss a deal to stay in town.

But the Bears haven't taken the mayor up on her offer. It's too little too late after the mayor misread the Bears' bid to buy the former racetrack by publicly calling it "nothing but noise" to negotiate a better lease agreement, said pro sports stadium guru Marc Ganis, CEO of Chicago-based Sportscorp Ltd.

"Here's a baseball analogy. When the Bears first announced their interest in Arlington Park, let's say that was a brushback pitch. The mayor in return threw her bat at the pitcher. Terrible way to start," he said.

"Let's be realistic. There's a toxic political environment here. And it's already more welcoming in Arlington Heights. The Bears' fan base is better served in Arlington Park for transportation, parking, tailgating and things like that."

You can't blame this one on Lightfoot. Or Friends of the Parks. Or anybody else.

Bears ownership must see the suburban real estate deal as a way to increase the team's value in a way that winning never could. And they're a chip-shot field goal away from making it happen.

So, fans like us, we'll just have to get ready to say goodbye to Bears games in Chicago.

Unless, they double-doink it.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docuseries on CNN and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary "16 Shots."

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