Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Score callers share their feelings about Bears' stadium push

Episode Date: February 11, 2026

Leila Rahimi, Marshall Harris and Mark Grote opened up the phone lines for Score callers to share their thoughts on the Bears' push for a new stadium.

Rahimi Harrison Grody, Midday's tidal two on Chicago Sports Radio. This is Rahimi Harrison Grotie on 1043, The Score. And we thought we were going to talk to Modis Buzzellis at 11, but it turns out that that's going to be a little earlier. So we'll get into more of what Cam Buckner had to say and how it relates to not just the Bears, but other deals we've seen so far on the NFL. We'll do that at 11.

And in the meantime, we wanted to get to your calls. 312, 64, 64, 67, 67 is the number. Let's start with Pat on the south side. Pat, you're on Rahimi Harrison Grody. Hey, what's going on? How are you? So, I'm good. My dream scenario would be the Bears buying the old Belmore race course and moving it out south,

but I know that's not going to happen. Right now, I would like to see them just moved to Indiana. I would like to see them, the Illinois politicians the big middle finger that's what I would like to see Pat

we appreciate the call you broke up there a little bit but the sentiment is understood as far as moving to Indiana he wanted them with Colin Sexton basically the

Illinois politicians is what he said right that make sure I heard that right yeah Colin Sexton flipped off the rim the other day for the Bulls and is at the free throw line

I guess the Bears put up a semi middle finger by sending out the note they did in December that they were going to move to Indiana. So everybody is on the same page now, sort of, kind of. Joe in Salem, Wisconsin. You're on Rahimi Harrison-Grady. Good morning. Thanks for taking a call.

I just want to make this clear that I am a Bears fan, lifelong Bear fan. And I think Arlington Heights is the best place, given the fact that they've bought the land. They've screwed around for three years. They probably could have had the stadium well underway by now if they would have had all their ducks in a row. But I think in the long run, it's the best place for the bears. Thank you. Yeah, it makes sense. They bought the land there. They intended on moving there. Then things changed. And you have to start asking yourself kind of in retrospect, how much have things changed based on the fact that they bought the land there? Like that was where they wanted and they didn't have things sorted out.

And it's taken, what, three years to sort out the details? Is that basically where we're at? Well, right. It was like we were talking about yesterday. Along comes Kevin Warren who says, in his mind, I wish you hadn't have bought the land yet. Okay. You bought the land. This is not going to be ideal, but I got some ideas.

And that's where the wild goose chase for the stadium started with the downtown plan, which I attended quite the show. Quite the show, by the way. And then to Arlington Heights, and then to Indiana, to wherever we are now. So unfortunately, Kevin Warren came, when he started the gig, he came in from, he was behind the ball. He was behind three, four, five runs already. So it was awkward. It was awkward.

Let's go with the phone some more. 312, 644, 67, 67. How about Mike and Aurora? Mike, you're on Rahimi Harrison Grotie. Mike. Yeah, my thought is the bear should take the deal. from Indiana and then take their $200 million and become real estate developers in Arlington Heights. Then the family would have another business.

Okay, that's not a bad idea. It's really not, actually. Get some braiding on that stuff. Pre-approved by the Bears? Maybe they could even lock in a deal on taxes before they take Indiana's deal. Well, that's the whole thing, right? Like, you just mentioned the, I don't know, what do you want to call it, the multi-billion-dollar question, Mike? that's it. You just identified the whole reason that the bears are even in this situation right now.

That's what the crux is. So I think that that's something that we need to keep in mind here. It's that concept of property tax certainty. 312-644-67 to Indiana and Mark. Hey, Mark. How are you doing? Hi, Marshall and Mark. It's great to chime in with you. Good to talk to you, Mark. Yeah, I've got an idea to keep the bears. Arleason Heights. I think currently there's an NFL exemption that a team can only take on a partnership of 10% or more. I know, like Mr. the Aon group and Dan Ryan has 20%. But I wonder if the McCaskey family could recruit another partner to take down 20%,

such as Mr. Mark Walters of the Guggenheim group, and they'll raise about $3 billion in revenue and get the Arlington Heights project done. I think that might have to have a ruling by the NFL, but if we could check on that, that's one way to keep them in Arlington Heights. Mark, you're not too far off. Yeah, the NFL is, they're allowing private capital

to buy in and buy shares of teams now. Yeah, you can only go up to 10% with private equity specifically, but selling off a piece of the team is a whole different ordeal. They had the chance to do that, and that's why we know the team is valued at, $9 billion. $9 billion. When a member of the

shareholders passed away, we found that out because then we had to figure out what were those worth. So I don't think you're too far off in your idea process. We continue on the phones. 312, 644, 67-67 to Dave and Skokie. Dave, you're on.

Hey, I'm totally opposed to giving large tax breaks to billionaires. I think that they that there's, you know, that I don't have tax certainty on my real estate. I don't know why they deserve it,

except that it's power. It's about power. And they're billionaires. So I'm just, I'm just sickened. And if they moved to Indiana, I'm not a bear fan. I've been a bear fan my whole life.

And that's the way I feel. Wait, you said, So you're not going to be happy anyway, either way. Yeah. So you're going to be angry at the, tax breaks that the bears maybe will have gotten, and you're not going to watch if they go to Indiana. Well, I don't, you know, I'm, the negotiations is fine, but I don't, you know, there's no

studies that have been done that show that there is a net economic positive to building a new stadium, as well as, it's a deficit to Chicago when they leave. So what, what does, as a Chicago tax bear, Illinois tax bear, what, how does it, how does it benefit me. Right. And that's the question. And that's a fair question. I want to know more about that. And we are, the three of us sitting in here are all taxpayers of Illinois and Chicago residents. Who pays, who loses, who benefits. That's always what you have to know. Good question. The difficult part in this is we know who benefits. So like that's, that's why you're listening to a sports station. That's what makes us tough. And I think the problem is we all

understand the default. The default is we're going to lose. It's almost a matter of just how much are we going to lose to be able to say the bears are, you know, still is it a loss? It's what they call a lost leader. Well, yeah, and that's it. And it's how much do you want that? And the understanding is, traditionally, is that you look at the guaranteed amount of dates. You start with that as to its viability to a public. So, for example, the Cubs who paid all of their own money did not get any public money to help in the infrastructure improvement of Wrigley Field and to help with the surrounding area, they have the most days. They have the most days at a guaranteed 81. So when you consider that, you have 81 guaranteed days a year that the good in the public is giving back to the

public. Then the Cubs supplement that with concerts. They have like the Gallagher Way, you know, installations that they do, for example, like the Chris Kendall market that we never got to go to guys. What about that sick DJ that played in Gallagher way? Yes, John Summit. Yeah. And he was before a Cubs game in the playoffs. So you know, there's another set of dates. Kind of an ad on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there was an ad. But that was a nice little surprise that day. And the Cubs are considered exemplary because of the fact they didn't use any public money and that they get the most use in a neighborhood out of their ballpark. So that's kind of the ideal. And then you kind of go from there as to how much it gives back to the entity that the public money usually

goes toward. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that you see. say exemplary, like that's the model, right? If you're a public citizen and a private billion dollar company is operating and they're saying, we want help, you say no and they just continue to go about their business and make money, that is something that we're not seeing from the bears and we can't even imagine from the bears. That's the problem. And if you need to understand how much value teams have, look no further than the salary cap, which has gone up $100 million in the last four years.

That's wild. We're looking at an over $300 million salary cap for each team. Business has picked up. Let's continue on our phones. 312-644-67, Jose and Berwyn. Jose, you're on Rahimi Harrison Grody. Hey, good morning, team. How are y'all doing?

Good. How are you, Jose? Doing well, thank you. I just wanted to highlight a couple things that I think not enough people are talking about. The first is, I mean, number one, I think from a nostalgic point of view, I would love for them to stay at Soldier Field. But if they do have to leave, Arlington Heights makes the most sense for a number of reasons. I think the first one is geography, right?

It is actually more central in terms of the Chicago metropolitan area, although Indiana is closer in terms of downtown. You think about where O'Hare is located, where Hollis Hall located, and more importantly, where actual population of Chicago areas is more concentrated. right Cook County, King County, DuPage County, these are the most populous counties in the region. So it makes sense from a geographic point of view. The other one is not enough people are talking about how much it's going to cost to remediate that land in Indiana. We're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up that land, and not to mention the fact that it will still be surrounded by a heavy industry, a very polluting industry.

So I think people have this idea that it's like, oh, yeah, the lakefront is open. Let's go develop that, and it's really not the case. So I think, yeah, Arlington Heights makes sense for a number of reasons from the short-term and the long-term, because then they, of course, open or would own their own facility. Jose, that's a great call. Yeah, thank you. That's a really good point about the remediation of the land. And that was an issue with the Michael Reesite was when that was suggested trying to figure out whether or not,

you know, that was a viable piece of land once you had to consider what went into developing it from an environmental standpoint or an access standpoint. those are all things that really do indicate a cost. It comes down to do we really believe that Indiana, after hearing from Camp Buckner yesterday and just understanding how this process is going, how much longer is Indiana a viable option? And we know the deadline, February 27th for the end of state legislation down below Illinois, but also as they move further and further, it seems like they're going to get to a point rather quickly where it's Illinois or bust.

Well, you know, there's also the phrase follow the money. Where's the most money located toward this topic? Arlington Heights. You start there. Then you start following wherever else they needed to go. This is Rahimi Harrison Grotie on 104.3, the score. We thank you for all of your calls. We are a little bit kept to the Bulls practice schedule this morning

because we get to talk to Modis Bezellis ahead of his third straight rising star. event. So we are excited to do that. So once practice wraps up, we get to talk to Modis, and we are waiting for him now. So we might have to do a little pregame show, a little modest Bezellis interview pregame show. We'll get back into more about the stadium at 11 o'clock, and next up is Modest Talk on the score.