I'm not quibbling if you don't like public dollars going to private companies even if it happens all the time. Huge amounts of both federal and state $ are provided to private companies all the time in all the states.

The Bears do not gross "billions." An easy google search will show that the Bears gross around $650 million per year. The Top Grosser in the NFL: The Dallas Cowboys lead the league, grossing an estimated $1.27 billion a year—largely due to unprecedented local sponsorships and massive stadium revenues. The High End: Big-market organizations like the Los Angeles Rams and New England Patriots gross between $750 million and $875 million annually. The League Average/Floor: The remainder of the league clusters closely together, with teams like the Buffalo Bills bringing in around $580 million to $600 million annually. And just to be clear since there are way too many folks who are either purposely ignorant or really are ignorant: The Bears are funding their own stadium to the tune, at this point of roughly $2.5B that is already locked in. The Bears have been trying to achieve two things: negotiate local bodies on taxes (which happens in almost every county in Illinois that wants to attract business) and probably $750M in infrastructure from the state. The ironic thing is that if the Stadium is built in Indiana, Illinois is going to have to make significant improvements to the infrastructure in that area anyway.

I get the aversion to wanting to "pay-off" big business but it happens all the time. From 2020-24 in Illinois alone, there were 27 data centers that benefited by more than $983 million from tax incentives, according to a state report. And data centers do not deliver high numbers of jobs. Heck the 2024 Democratic Convention cost the city roughly $170M and not a peep was heard.

There two prime reasons this stadium deal isn't done: 1) Pritzker wants to run for President in '28 and everything going on in the state now is driven by that obsession. and 2) Chicago-based state politicians have basically taken their ball and bat and gone home. Pouting because they can't have the Bears.

I understand that taxpayers don't want to "fund" big business but it happens quietly and opaquely all the time. I find it pathetically ironic that while the Governor and State Legislature wring that hands about the Bears stadium, the state basically funds the big public sector labor unions (the Teachers Union basically runs the city) by refusing to do anything to mitigate the pension mess in Illinois.

Personally I don't care where they build the stadium as I am Packer fan and in more than 45 years in the Chicago area, I have been to Soldier field 3 times and two of those were for ND games