On the eve of Tuesday’s primary elections, let’s step away from high school sports and get into politics and its relationship to sports as a whole.
An ugly specter is brewing in Chicago with fat cat owners insisting that the taxpayers pay for new football and baseball stadiums for the Bears and White Sox. This has been played out before, with both teams holding inept politicians hostage until concessions were made to their benefit.
Remember in 1988 when White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf threatened to move to Florida if he didn’t public funding for a new stadium? Speaker of the House Mike Madigan and Governor Jim Thompson got in bed with Reinsdorf and proceeded to strong-arm the General Assembly into agreeing to this in an infamous midnight deadline vote.
That was a total betrayal to the taxpayers of Illinois and was best spelled out by a state rep who said, “we can’t take care of the children, we can’t take care of the poor, we can’t take care of the sick, we can’t take care of the mentally ill. Let's shut this place down and go home and forget the White Sox."
That should have been the correct response to Reinsdorf’s outlandish demand, but in the perverse world of Illinois politics, the bad guys got their way instead. Since then, more public funds have been shoveled into the facility for renovations, because it was soon deemed out of style and not as fan-friendly as other baseball venues.
Now, the same game is being played out in 2024 with Reinsdorf wanting to scrap the 33-year-old ballpark and start anew with a $2-billion facility on the south side of Chicago. In a similar bargaining tactic, he’s threatening to move to Nashville public funding is not approved.
My house on 14th Street in Oregon was built in 1991, the same year the new White Sox park opened. Though there are a few things I would have done differently, would I raze it and start over? Of course not. That would be insane.
But, in the world of professional sports, owners live in fantasyland. To have the audacity to scrap a new stadium built with public money and start over with more public money is a testament to sports owners’ lack of regard for the taxpayer.
The Chicago Bears are playing the same political football with more variables. As a beloved institution, they would never move out of state, but have made it clear they would move from Soldier Field to a suburban site.
One option is building a state-of-the-art domed stadium in Arlington Heights on land they purchased at the old racetrack there. Another location being considered for new construction is in the area just south of Soldier Field.
In this scenario, Bears can play one side against the other in its request for public funding. The Illinois Sport Facilities Authority, which issues bonds for projects like this, owes $589 million on the 2002 renovation of Soldier Field.
Similar to Reinsdorf, the McCaskey family is not content with all the public money they’ve received for the Bears. They want more in what promises to be an interesting fight.
In the battle for public money, there is a lie that politicians often fall prey to and that is that professional sports team bring valuable revenue to a city and they deserve public funding. Studies are propped up that show the increased economic impact of having a sports team, be it of the minor-league variety like Rockford has or the big time like Chicago.
These contain faulty reasoning and experts in business refute it, citing many other ways in which economic growth and productivity occurs. It truly is a complicated matter, one of which politicians need to research rather than accepting the propaganda being spoon-fed by sports teams.
There are cases all over the country where communities regretted providing public funding for sports, essentially allowing them to be an albatross to taxpayers. But, in a sports-crazed nation, it is easy to have one’s views be distorted rather than making political decisions with a sound mind.
On a separate and more positive political issue, it was refreshing to have such a highly-contested race for county coroner. As voters in Ogle County, we couldn’t have gone wrong with either candidate.
It’s a shame the same can’t be said of the upcoming presidential election.
Andy Colbert is a longtime Ogle County resident with years of experience covering sports and more for multiple area publications.
