Kevin Warren Just Backpedaled FAST After Indiana Praise – Proving He Blundered
Chicago Bears president Kevin Warren caused a media firestorm on Thursday with two questionable decisions. First, the team asked the Illinois legislature to cancel the scheduled hearing on the megaprojects bill that would’ve provided the property tax certainty the team had been looking for. Then, right after news of that hit, he issued a public statement about Indiana passing a bill that would help the team’s efforts to build a stadium in Hammond. It was a complete shock to Illinois politicians, seen as a moment of bad faith after weeks of positive progress.
Apparently, it didn’t sit well with George McCaskey either. The Bears’ owner was said to be “livid” with Warren over the blunder, adding it to a long list of disappointing moments in a three-year saga of trying to get this stadium off the ground. Now it appears Warren is rapidly trying to walk back his comments from a few days ago. He issued a statement to Danny Ecker of Crain’s Chicago Business. He insisted the team continues to work with Illinois leadership and hopes to build on the progress made.
After jolting Illinois leaders by praising Indiana’s stadium push, the Chicago Bears now say they are moving forward on legislation in Springfield.
“We continue to work with Illinois’ leadership and appreciate the progress being made,” Bears CEO Kevin Warren said today in a statement to Crain’s.
The shift in tone comes two days after the team hailed an Indiana House committee’s approval of a stadium finance authority in Hammond as the “most meaningful efforts in our stadium planning efforts to date” — a statement that drew a sharp rebuke from Gov. JB Pritzker, who said he was “surprised, dismayed and very disappointed” by that messaging.
Kevin Warren was not prepared for this.
The entire selling point of his hire was his experience with the process of getting a new stadium built. He was with the Minnesota Vikings organization when they set out to construct U.S. Bank Stadium. That process was mostly smooth. No doubt he’d be able to handle the same challenges in Illinois. It didn’t take long to realize that he’d gone from easy mode to impossible. This state has a long, storied history of nasty politics, especially when so much money is involved. Governor J.B. Pritzker announced that the Bears would receive no taxpayer money to fund the stadium.
Instead of working through the process, Kevin Warren seemed to get flustered. He reopened the team’s search for a new home, making a strong push for a new downtown stadium complex despite everybody knowing it would never work for several reasons. When that failed, having wasted months of time for no reason, Warren returned to the Arlington Heights plan. Again, the state refused to cooperate with his preferred timeline, and that is how Indiana came into the picture.
It got the intended reaction from Springfield, and negotiations finally picked up. Yet rather than let things progress, Warren couldn’t help himself. Like any self-promoter, he had to get his name in the news cycle again with that public statement, and now it’s costing him.
Warren’s future in Chicago is murky at best.
This entire situation has been a mess from start to finish. Right now, it appears the original plan will go through. The Bears will receive assurances from the state on their infrastructure and property tax obligations, and then fund the stadium construction themselves. However, that may not be enough to guarantee anything for Kevin Warren moving forward. It was always felt that his time in Chicago was temporary. Even after he arrived as president, many felt he viewed it as a stepping stone to his ultimate goal: becoming NFL commissioner.
After the series of fiascos that have dotted the timeline of this stadium deal, it’s hard to imagine Warren even staying in his current position for long. The McCaskeys brought him in solely for his expertise at negotiating stadium deals. Not being able to do the one thing you were hired for is not a great sign. It wouldn’t be shocking if he’s fired at some point after the dust settles.