Two Chicago area sports teams; Chicago Bears and Chicago White SoxI want to build a new stadium. The Bears are looking to build a new $4.7 billion stadium just south of Soldier Field's current site, and the White Sox want to build a new stadium in the South Loop. As you can imagine, both ownership groups are looking for public funds to fund these projects.
Now, state lawmakers want to link potential funds to success on the ground.
Illinois State Assemblyman Bob Morgan (D-Deerfield) introduced it Illinois Legislature HB2969 Thursday. A short explanation listed in this bill?
“Da Bears Stadium Surveillance Act.”
According to the proposed law overview, the bill will generate “balanced revenue and record standards (Bears) and stadium monitoring and expectations laws.” This requires professional teams to be eligible for public funding by achieving a .500% win rate in three of the last five seasons.
Teams that have not existed for five years will be exempt from the eligibility requirement, but if they are seeking public funding in the future, they will be able to “compete” by achieving a 0.500% win rate on at least two of the two. It needs to demonstrate powerful performance. The first five seasons.
The proposed law, the full text You can read it hereand includes penalties for misrepresentation during the review process. According to the proposed law.”[a]It turns out that the NY team has been deliberately misrepresented its performance record or eligibility criteria. (1) Fines up to $500,000. (2) Prohibition of applications for public funding for five years. ”
In a statementRepresentative Morgan indicated that the proposed law aims to prevent wasted spending on taxpayer funding.
“No one wants to see taxpayer dollars being wasted by owners of billionaires teams that aren't investing in their team's competitiveness,” Morgan said. “As Illinois families are tightening their belts due to rising costs of living, we need to be careful about how they spend limited public dollars, especially when it comes to the $1 billion franchise. Illinois is a public one. We should be committed to ensuring that the investment is directed towards Illinois residents and at least to teams performing at a competitive level.”
If the proposed law becomes law, it could prove to be problematic when these two teams seek a new stadium. The White Sox are out of two gloomy seasons, However, it ended above .500 Three straight seasons from 2020 to 2022 will prove that another loss season in 2025 will be ineligible as drafted under this law.
As for the bear, at the end they Finished with .500 records It came five seasons ago, when we finished 8-8 in 2020.
