00:00But the Bears have done themselves no favors throughout this process.
00:04There's certainly a lot of blame to be thrown around.
00:07I'm sure, you know, the legislature and the governor on that side are not blameless.
00:14But if you talk to people in Springfield, people that have been around who know politics,
00:20there's a name that keeps coming up as a common denominator for why the Bears have had so many issues.
00:25And that's Kevin Warren.
00:27That Kevin Warren has totally kind of bungled this process.
00:32I mean, he inherited a bad situation.
00:34I mean, the Bears had already bought the land.
00:36They kind of did things in, I guess, topsy-turvy, you know, opposite as you usually do in a stadium
00:43deal type of situation.
00:45But that he kind of made it worse.
00:48And it wasn't for lack of having, you know, good people on your team.
00:52I mean, the Bears have hired some of the best lobbyists that money can buy and that know Springfield.
01:00But that only gets you so far when you don't listen to them.
01:05And the Bears throughout this process have not always listened to the people that know how to get stuff done
01:11in Springfield.
01:12And, you know, we saw that when they did their first, I guess, rendezvous with Chicago in 2024.
01:21Saw that, you know, kind of how they handled some of the Indiana negotiations earlier this year that upset a
01:29lot of, you know, upset the governor, upset a lot of the folks in the legislature.
01:34Kind of, you know, that statement that came out after Indiana passed their bill.
01:37And then these back channels with Chicago, I mean, which, as Senator Cunningham has said, were more than just talking
01:45about their lease at Soldier Field or were more than just lawyers talking that this was more of a back
01:53channel of, well, if we, you know, if this thing doesn't work in Arlington Heights.
01:57And so I think, you know, just to be, you know, pardon my French, but these legislators, Springfield folks, they
02:09don't like to be jerked around.
02:10And I think there's a general feeling that the Bears have been jerking them around throughout this process.
02:18And that did not help them get what they want out of Springfield.
02:24Obviously, you did get a bill that passed the House, you got one that passed the Senate, but not the
02:28same bill.
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