The Chicago Bears' board of directors voted last week to advance their stadium project in Hammond, Indiana. After 105 years in Chicago, one of the NFL's founding franchises is crossing state lines. ABC 7 reported the move is, barring anything strange, "a done deal."
I've spent decades representing buyers of professional sports franchises and sitting in due diligence rooms for NFL, NBA, and NHL deals. The spreadsheets matter, but governance, safety, and basic competence always surface as deciding factors. When cities fail those tests consistently, teams leave. The Bears' move exposes what one-party progressive governance delivers to once-great markets.
The Tax Case Is Straightforward
Tax differences hit harder in professional sports than in most industries. Nevada carries no state income tax, which drew the Raiders to Las Vegas. California clubs fight the country's highest marginal rates — 13.3 percent on wage income. Illinois dragged its feet on roughly $855 million in infrastructure commitments and property tax certainty. Indiana's legislature passed a Northwest Indiana Stadium Authority bill and said yes. Gov. Mike Braun put it simply: "Hoosiers, help me welcome the Chicago Bears to our great state!"
There's a compounding tax effect that rarely gets discussed publicly: the jock tax. Most states tax visiting athletes on income earned within their borders, allocated through a duty-days formula covering practices, training camp, mandatory meetings, and games — not just game days alone. An NFL player earning $20 million carries roughly 160 to 180 duty days per season. A road game in California represents two of those days; California taxes the corresponding fraction at 13.3 percent. Players on Las Vegas, Dallas, or Nashville rosters pay the jock tax on the road but owe nothing on home-game income. With only 17 regular-season games — far fewer than the NBA's 82 or MLB's 162 — home income represents a much larger share of total annual earnings than in any other major sport. Moving the home market from Illinois at 4.95 percent to Indiana at 2.95 percent — or from California at 13.3 percent to Nevada at zero — adds up to hundreds of thousands per player per season. Over a career, it's millions. Every agent knows this calculation.
I've watched these same dynamics unfold in deal rooms with nothing on the agenda about tax policy. Then someone raises the corporate sponsor who won't associate with a venue in a deteriorating neighborhood, or the suite holder who stopped renewing. These things don't stay abstract. They end up in final offers.
Oakland Went First. Chicago Is Following.
The Oakland Athletics broke ground on a $2 billion Las Vegas ballpark set to open before 2028, after years of failed Bay Area stadium negotiations. MLB owners voted unanimously to approve the move in November 2023. The Chicago White Sox have used relocation conversations as leverage against a city that still can't execute a basic deal. San Antonio just passed $311 million in visitor-tax-funded arena financing for the Spurs, and will eventually build a $1.3 billion stadium. Oklahoma City approved a $900 million Thunder arena by a 71 percent vote through a one-cent sales tax. The 2025 NBA champion Thunder are locked in through 2050. Both cities closed deals that Chicago and Oakland couldn't. Nashville and Salt Lake City are the two leading MLB expansion candidates. The common thread in every winning city: cooperative government, low taxes, and a clear path to a deal.
Crime Compounds the Problem
A 2023 survey of more than 3,200 NFL fans found 39.2 percent had witnessed a crime at or near a stadium. More than seven percent were themselves victims. Over 77 percent of parents wouldn't let a minor child attend without supervision. Corporate sponsors run risk assessments before renewing. Chicago's Soldier Field sits inside a city with persistent violent crime pressures. Game-day policing is heavy; the broader reputation still costs the franchise in negotiations, sponsorships, and attendance trends.
What Actually Fixes This
Cut taxes to compete. Restore policing that prioritizes safety over ideology. Create real electoral competition for governments that have operated unchallenged for decades. And on stadium deals, demand private capital upfront, bind results to performance metrics, and protect taxpayers from becoming the default backstop. The Nevada Legislature capped the A's public subsidy at $380 million out of a $2 billion project. That's the model.
Thomas Sowell captured it simply: incentives matter, and people respond to them. Chicago has constructed an incentive structure that makes departure rational. San Antonio, Oklahoma City, and a growing list of business-friendly cities have built one that makes commitment rational. The Bears' move to Hammond is not a surprise. It's a decision that was years in the making — and it won't be the last one unless blue-state leaders choose to govern differently.
Jay Rogers is a financial professional with more than 30 years of experience in private equity, private credit, hedge funds, and wealth management. He writes about issues in finance, constitutional law, national security, human nature, and public policy.