There are only so many public dollars available for sports venues in Illinois.
Chicago that toddlin’ town, my kind of town if you happen to own Major League Baseball’s Chicago White Sox franchise or the National Football League’s Chicago Bears franchise or Major League Soccer’s Chicago Fire franchise. Or is Chicago really my kind of town for White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, or the Bears’ ownership group, the McCaskey family, or for Joe Mansueto, the owner of the Chicago Fire franchise. The three businesses are looking for plants in Chicago and they are also looking for taxpayers’ dollars from Chicago residents to build new playgrounds for their businesses. So far, Reinsdorf and the McCaskey family have been told no state money will be available for their projects from the Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker. But in the world of stadium building no never means no. But an owner needs a strategy to extract money from taxpayers’ pockets. Reinsdorf seems to be using an old playbook from the late 1980s when the White Sox owner pitted Chicago against St. Petersburg, Florida in the stadium game. Reinsdorf eventually got his new stadium which opened in 1991. A 33-year-old stadium is obsolete these days in the view of owners and a stadium has to be more than just a sports venue. It needs to be surrounded by businesses on land developed by a sports franchise owner.
Reinsdorf has some land in mind in Chicago but just in case the 88-year-old Reinsdorf doesn’t put the right pressure by himself on Chicago and Illinois elected officials, he has visited Nashville to say hello to people there and allegedly in in talks to sell the franchise to Dave Stewart who is part of a Nashville group. Bears’ ownership is pitting suburban Arlington Heights against the city and now Joe Mansueto wants a soccer stadium. It is an expensive time to be a big league city.
Joe Mansueto is the owner of Major League Soccer’s Chicago Fire and wants a new stadium.
