The Chicago Bears of Indiana : NPR

[ad_1] <img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/5472x2861+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F30%2F70%2F12ae499b485abb17e33857ac4838%2Fgettyimages-1283396375.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/5472x2861+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F30%2F70%2F12ae499b485abb17e33857ac4838%2Fgettyimages-1283396375.jpg" class="img" alt="In this drone image, a general view of Soldier Field with the Chicago skyline before a game between the New Orleans Saints and the Chicago Bears on November 01, 2020 in Chicago, Illinois." fetchpriority="high"/> On this drone picture, a common view of Soldier Subject with the Chicago skyline earlier than a recreation between the New Orleans Saints and the Chicago Bears on November 01, 2020 in Chicago, Illinois. Quinn Harris/Getty Photographs/Getty Photographs North America disguise caption

toggle caption

Quinn Harris/Getty Photographs/Getty Photographs North America Indiana Gov. Mike Braun has signed a invoice meant to lure the Chicago Bears throughout state strains.

The Indiana invoice provides financing, tax breaks, and infrastructure for a dome stadium they are saying will anchor a brand new leisure district some 20 miles south of town that bears the Bears title.

In fact, the Bears already play in an enormous leisure district that brims with eating places, theaters and bars: Chicago.

The staff's longtime house has been Soldier Subject, inbuilt 1924. It's the oldest stadium within the NFL, and open to the weather. When icy snows fall, opposing groups shiver within the lake winds. The Bear gamers put on quick sleeves, and sling landing passes.

Bear down, as we followers say. Domes are for tea events, not soccer.

And devotion to Da Bears appears to suit Chicago's sense of civic id: the "Metropolis of the Large Shoulders," because the poet Carl Sandburg referred to as it.

As Jim McMahon, who quarterbacked the staff to a Tremendous Bowl title within the 1885 season, has mentioned, "It is a hard-working city, and these followers admire hard-working gamers. Should you play laborious for Chicago, they will love you."

However NFL golf equipment play simply eight or 9 house video games a season - and even fewer, with many now taking part in a recreation or two abroad, in cities from Munich to Melbourne. And loads of groups have already relocated to the suburbs. The New York Giants and Jets play their house video games in East Rutherford, New Jersey; the San Francisco 49ers play in Santa Clara; and the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs are constructing their new stadium throughout the Kansas state line. Possibly town names of soccer groups are already extra branding than geography.

Ought to Bear followers not solely bear down, however get a grip? The staff may transfer to Indiana, not Indonesia. Hammond is a part of metro Chicago, in spite of everything. And it may use a lift.

"Northwest Indiana has been trapped in perpetual decline ever because the auto crops, metal mills and ironworks began closing store in 1970," Andrew Lawrence wrote within the Guardian this week. He says a brand new Bears stadium throughout the border may "breathe new life right into a south Chicago group battered by financial crosswinds."

A latest ballot by Axios Chicago discovered that 74% of those that voted say they might "carry a grudge" in opposition to the Bears in the event that they moved to Indiana. I voted in that ballot—twice. It is the Chicago Means.