An Indiana House panel approved legislation on Thursday to help finance a potential new NFL stadium for the Chicago Bears, the most concrete sign yet that one of the NFL's oldest franchises may be heading across the state line. The facility could be constructed near Wolf Lake in Hammond, Indiana, just across the border from the city the Bears have called home for over a century.
The Bears called the development the "most meaningful step forward" in their quest for a new stadium. Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich had a different phrase for it: "gubernatorial malpractice."
According to Fox News, Blagojevich, appearing on "Fox & Friends Weekend" on Saturday, tore into his successor with the kind of bluntness that only a former governor with nothing left to lose can deliver.
"The Indiana legislature did what it did, and it caught our governor asleep."
That was just the opening. Blagojevich connected the dots between Illinois's spending priorities and the Bears' departure in terms that should haunt Springfield:
"He spent $3 billion on illegal immigrants, migrants, and apparently doesn't have the money or has paid the attention to try to keep the Bears in Illinois."
Three billion dollars. That's the figure Pritzker's Illinois poured into subsidizing illegal immigrants while an NFL franchise with a century-long history in Chicago was shopping for the exit. Blagojevich pointed out this isn't an isolated incident, saying Pritzker "really is guilty of gubernatorial malpractice, and this isn't the first time a major business is about to leave Illinois."
The former governor framed the situation in terms of competing priorities, and the comparison is brutal:
"He's been outplayed and outflanked by this Indiana governor because his priorities are all about defending sanctuary for illegal immigrants."
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, speaking on "Fox News Live" Saturday, filled in the timeline that makes Pritzker's shock even harder to take seriously. The Bears approached Indiana five months ago, Braun said, after being "rebuffed" by their own state government. But the problem stretches back much further than that.
"This is dereliction because they've been trying to work with the state, with the city, for three years."
Three years. The Bears spent three years trying to get Illinois and Chicago to work with them on a new stadium. The response they received was apparently so inadequate that the franchise went looking across state lines for a partner willing to take them seriously.
Braun made clear he has no intention of stripping the team's identity. He called "Chicago Bears" an "iconic name" regardless of zip code and said Indiana is focused on providing a "better home" where the "dollar goes a lot farther." That last point is the quiet knife. Indiana can offer what Illinois can't because Indiana didn't burn through its resources on sanctuary city politics.
Now come the familiar sounds of Illinois Democrats pretending to care after the damage is done.
Pritzker told reporters he was "very disappointed" and caught off guard by the Bears' announcement. He noted his staff spoke to the franchise for more than three hours on Wednesday. Three hours of conversation after three years of inaction. The math does not inspire confidence.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, meanwhile, said the Bears "belong" in Chicago and that the door remains open for conversations. The door has apparently been open for years. Nobody in city or state leadership bothered to walk through it with anything meaningful until Indiana showed up with a legislative package and a handshake.
Fox News Digital reached out to representatives of Pritzker and did not immediately hear back.
This story is about more than football. It's about what happens when a state's political leadership decides that signaling virtue matters more than serving the people who actually live and work there.
Blagojevich nailed the core tension:
"[Pritzker] turned his back on a working-class fan base of the Chicago Bears."
That's the constituency that always pays the price when blue-state governors chase progressive credibility. Working-class fans in Chicago don't get consulted when billions flow toward illegal immigrants. They don't get a vote when sanctuary policies take priority over economic competitiveness. They just get to watch their team pack up and move to a state that still understands basic fiscal priorities.
Illinois has been hemorrhaging businesses, residents, and tax base for years. The reasons are not mysterious. High taxes, hostile regulatory environments, and a political class that treats productive citizens and institutions as ATMs for progressive projects. The Bears potentially leaving is not some freak event. It is the logical conclusion of decades of mismanagement accelerated by Pritzker's particular brand of ideological spending.
Indiana, by contrast, did something radical: it listened. A franchise came asking for help, and within months, the state legislature moved to make it happen. That's not complicated governance. It's basic competence. The contrast with Illinois could not be starker.
Blagojevich, whatever his own complicated history, landed the final point cleanly:
"This would be a disgrace if Pritzker allows the Bears to leave and allows the governor of Indiana to intercept our Bears."
He's right. And the disgrace won't belong to Indiana for seizing an opportunity. It will belong entirely to the Illinois politicians who had every chance to keep one of the most storied franchises in American sports and chose to spend $3 billion on illegal immigrants instead.
The Bears haven't left yet. But when a franchise calls another state's offer the "most meaningful step forward," the direction of travel is clear. Chicago's working-class fans deserve better than leaders who noticed the problem three years too late and three billion dollars short.