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Daley retreats on Soldier Field
Selling naming rights now 'out of the question'

By Fran Spielman
Copyright 2001 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
Article date: September 26, 2001
 

Allowing the Bears to sell the corporate naming rights to a renovated Soldier Field as U.S. soldiers prepare to wage war against terrorism is "out of the question," Mayor Daley said Tuesday, in a move that could signal a slow retreat from the stadium project.

Daley said he remains committed to the new stadium, but he won't give the green-light for a $399 million bond issue backed by plummeting hotel tax revenues until financial analysts assess whether the downturn is temporary or permanent.

If the experts say they expect air travel to be permanently affected or, at the very least, that hotel rooms will stay empty for a long time, the mayor will have to decide whether he's willing to put Chicago taxpayers on the hook for a stadium at the same time he's considering raising taxes for more pressing needs.

Unless City Hall can find another revenue source--and the search is under way--the stadium bonds will be retired by the same 2 percent increase in Chicago's hotel tax that financed Comiskey Park. The deal assumes the tax will continue to grow at an annual rate of 5 percent. If it doesn't, Chicago will make up the difference by allowing the state to withhold a portion of the city's share of the state income tax. "Everything is in turmoil: public and private investments. . . . Every city is in the same situation as we are. That's why we're looking at it," Daley said.

Pressed on whether the project was in jeopardy, Daley said, "No. We're just reviewing the financial end of it. That's all. The markets have to come back. . . . Tourism and conventions are coming back. They have to and they will. [Otherwise] the terrorists have won."

Daley said he will not allow the Bears to earn as much as $300 million over the next 30 years by selling the corporate naming rights to a renovated Soldier Field.

"No company is ever going to buy the naming rights to Soldier Field. It's out of the question. I'm against that," he said. "It's not going to be John Jones Soldier Field. It's going to be Soldier Field. It's always going to be Soldier Field." 

Bears President Ted Phillips refused to comment on Daley's decision to renege on a lucrative provision of the team's "memorandum of understanding" with the Chicago Park District.

"I don't feel it's the right time or the place to discuss the naming rights situation," Phillips said.

Veterans who have spent months pleading with Daley to stop the "commercial desecration" of a war memorial welcomed the mayoral retreat.

"I've been out there with thousands of petitions, just hoping he would say something like that," said World War II veteran Frank Piatek, 83. "It certainly would be unpatriotic right now, while we're calling men to arms, to be selling advertising to a memorial to soliders who gave their lives." 

The agreement that sealed the stadium deal calls for the Bears and the Park District "to develop and implement a program for the sale of naming rights."

"Such agreement shall be subject to the approval of the Park District, such approval to not be unreasonably withheld," the deal states in language that apparently gives Daley an out.

Stadium financing expert Mark Ganis, a prominent NFL consultant not employed by the Bears, said there's no question that Daley has the legal leverage and political clout to get out of the naming rights deal. But, he said, "The mayor is taking away from the Bears a significant revenue stream they expected to receive. That's simply unfair to the Bears. If this is what the mayor wanted, he should have gotten it at the negotiating table." 
 

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