After an Indiana House committee passed legislation intended to lure the Chicago Bears to the Hoosier State, Gov. JB Pritzker says the team has informed them the move is not a done deal. 

Still, the governor said the Indiana legislature moving the bill and a subsequent statement from the Bears that they were “committed” to Indiana was a surprise.  

"The passage of [Indiana’s Senate Bill 27] would mark the most meaningful step forward in our stadium planning efforts to date," the Bears said in a statement. "We are committed to finishing the remaining site-specific necessary due diligence to support our vision to build a world-class stadium near the Wolf Lake area in Hammond, Indiana.”  

Pritzker said he was disappointed by the Bears' statement, as it did not mention that progress had also been made in Illinois.  

He said his team and state lawmakers met with Bears representatives for three hours Wednesday and had “mostly agreed” on a bill.  

The initial version of the bill that would freeze the Bears’ Arlington Heights site property tax assessment and allow for negotiations on property tax payment — House Bill 2789 — has been assigned to the House Revenue and Finance Committee. The bill had not been amended with any updated language from the negotiations as of Thursday afternoon.  

The House revenue committee was scheduled for a meeting Thursday morning, but it was cancelled, as is common in the early weeks of the legislative session. Pritzker said the Bears had requested the meeting to be delayed.   

“They asked us not to move forward with it this morning because they said they wanted to tweak a couple of items in the bill, which were things that we were working with them on,” Pritzker said. “Now they're saying to us that that statement is not some confirmation that they're moving to Indiana, but rather that Indiana had asked them to say that they're going to move forward with the negotiations in Indiana.”  

The Bears have sought a new, domed stadium on and off for decades, and have explored a move to Indiana before. They’ve been working on stadium plans for the Arlington Heights site that was once home to the Arlington International Racecourse since 2021 and appeared to be committed to the project as of September 2025.  

In an open letter to fans in September, President and CEO Kevin Warren said their wish was to finalize their plans in Arlington Heights in 2025. But that changed in December when he announced the team was disappointed by the slow progress being made in Springfield and would begin looking elsewhere — including Northwest Indiana.  

Pritzker said Warren was not present at the meeting Wednesday.  

Indiana lawmakers believe the Bears’ ideal site is in Hammond, Indiana, a city right on the state’s border with Illinois.  

The Indiana bill that cleared committee this morning would create the Northwest Indiana Stadium Authority, which would have the authority to acquire land, issue bonds and finance construction for the stadium.  

Pritzker and Democratic state leaders have vehemently opposed using any state dollars on the Bears stadium, though the team has said if they were to continue with the Arlington Heights plans, they wouldn’t need them.  

Instead, they want a temporary freeze on their assessment and a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes with the local taxing bodies, as well as state funding for infrastructure improvements in the region.  

Pritzker has repeatedly said that the infrastructure funding is largely agreed upon, saying in January that many of the Bears requests are already projects the state planned on undertaking. The property tax portion of the deal has proven a bit trickier, with many Democratic lawmakers expressing uncertainty about how a deal could impact local taxing bodies, such as schools.  

It could be some time before the Bears see any real movement in Springfield. Both the Illinois Senate and House will meet three days next week, but then the House won’t return to Springfield until March 18.