In June 2026, the Chicago Bears announced that the team’s board of directors had met together and voted in favor of advancing their stadium development project in the city of Hammond, Indiana, meaning that they would be leaving the Windy City behind and moving the team to greener pastures. At the time, Reverend Jordan Wells, a Christian pastor and political pundit, posted about what the loss of the team meant for Chicago.
“Chicago Democrats Just FUMBLED the Chicago Bears to Indiana. 100 Years of History. Gone. Running a city this badly isn’t an accident. Indiana is getting a brand-new, state-of-the-art Bears stadium.
Chicago gets to keep the crime, the sky-high taxes, and that $400 million taxpayer-funded Obama Presidential Center nobody asked for,” he said in a post published on X.
“Democrat policies have great consequences. This is what decades of one-party Democrat rule delivers: Businesses flee. Teams flee. People flee. And they’ll blame Trump, Republicans, or “systemic” everything… except their own failures. Indiana wins. Chicago loses. Again,” the post concluded. And as of this writing, it looks like the planned move is still on track.
During a press conference held on August 13, 2026, at Halas Hall, President and CEO Kevin Warren reaffirmed the team’s dedication to the move, saying, “Our sole focus at this point in time is working on a world-class stadium and mixed-use development in Hammond, Indiana.” He then revealed that the Bears concluded their due diligence at the Lost Marsh site in Hammond, saying it has been deemed viable for the project.
The team is also currently doing an evaluation of a second site in Hammond, Wolf Lake Terminal, which includes taking a deeper look at topographical, geographical, and environmental data. Warren also said they are considering merging the two sites and utilizing them together. “While we were working on the Lost Marsh site, we discovered a potential new site that could even be as good or better than the Lost Marsh site,” he explained. “So, we’re in the middle of that due diligence.
“We’re in regular, almost daily communication with the state of Indiana working on this. We have an excellent deal, a win-win partnership together. And the cost of the significance of this decision from a stadium standpoint, we will make sure that we take our time to get this right,” he said, according to a post on the official Chicago Bears website.
“The representatives from the state of Indiana, all the way from the governor’s office to representatives of northwest Indiana, have been phenomenal partners. They’ve been stellar to work with, very professional, diligent with a can-do attitude,” Warren added. Originally, the Bears were looking to build a new stadium in Arlington Heights.
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However, that all changed after the Illinois House of Representatives went on break in May without voting on a piece of legislation that would have provided the tax certainty the Bears were looking for. They are also seeking funds for infrastructure while also committing $2 billion of their own money to build the stadium itself. It was also revealed that the team would keep its name, even if they moved to Hammond.
Featured Image: screenshot from embedded video