June 2026 – Duane Morris Sports Law

By Michael R. Barz

The Chicago Bears’ search for a new stadium has become one of the most complex sports development stories in recent memory. In September 2021, the Bears entered into a purchase and sale agreement with Churchill Downs for the 326-acre site of the former Arlington International Racecourse in Arlington Heights, completing the $197.2 million purchase in February of 2023. When subsequent property tax negotiations with Arlington Heights stalled, Chicago and the State of Illinois entered the picture with their own competing proposal near Soldier Field. Then Indiana raised the stakes: Governor Mike Braun signed Senate Bill 27 in February 2026, establishing the Northwest Indiana Stadium Authority to help finance a potential Bears stadium in Hammond, Indiana, about 25 miles from downtown Chicago. As of early June 2026, Illinois lawmakers adjourned their spring session without passing a stadium bill, and the franchise stated it would “finalize its evaluation of both Arlington Heights and Hammond” on a late spring/early summer timeline.

The competing offers highlight how differently states can structure sports infrastructure deals. Indiana assembled a streamlined regional stadium authority empowered to issue state-backed bonds and leverage up to $1 billion in public financing, while establishing a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district to funnel hotel, restaurant, and retail tax revenues back into stadium debt service. Additional financing mechanisms under SB 27 include a 12% ticket tax on all stadium events, a potential countywide 1% food and beverage tax in Lake and Porter Counties, and a doubling of Lake County’s innkeeper’s tax. Illinois, by contrast, struggled to coalesce around any framework: its Senate bill would have enabled Cook County municipalities to create local stadium authorities empowered to issue revenue bonds, with surrounding mixed-use development eligible for tax increment financing designation—but the House adjourned without voting on it.

Any move—whether to Arlington Heights, Hammond, or back to a Chicago site—must account for the team’s existing Soldier Field lease, under which the Bears could owe approximately $90 million if they depart before 2033—meaningful, but manageable relative to the scale of the overall project. The more consequential legal takeaway from the Illinois legislative failure is structural: Governor Pritzker recently noted that 38 states already have PILOT megaproject laws, characterizing Illinois as “literally behind the curve” with a “disorganized, dysfunctional” approach to property tax negotiation for large developments. Indiana’s ability to quickly assemble a credible, multi-layered financing package reflects years of enabling legislation that Illinois simply does not yet have. Counsel advising teams, municipalities, or lenders in these transactions must understand not only the deal structure itself, but whether the underlying statutory framework in a given jurisdiction can actually support it.

In order to meet the Bears’ stated timeline, Illinois would need to call a special legislative session this summer as its lawmakers are not scheduled to reconvene until November; noting, however, that any bill passed after the May 31 deadline established by the Illinois Constitution would require a three-fifths supermajority to take immediate effect. A move to Indiana would add the Bears to the long list of NFL franchises that have crossed city or state lines in search of better stadium terms and would offer a meaningful new template for how layered public finance tools can be used to attract a franchise to a jurisdiction without an existing NFL presence.

Ultimately, the broader lesson to be learned here may be that it becomes increasingly difficult for a team to complete its financing objectives when trying to structure a deal built on hastily assembled or legally untested enabling legislation. The saga of Oakland and the relocation of its legendary franchises offers a cautionary tale: the multi-year failure to produce a workable public financing framework contributed to the loss of both the Raiders and the Athletics to Las Vegas, each time ceding ground to a jurisdiction that had done the legislative groundwork in advance.

On May 27, 2026, Senators Cruz and Cantwell announced the Protect College Sports Act, a sweeping bipartisan bill that represents the most comprehensive federal attempt yet to impose legal order on college athletics. For universities and conferences, the significance of this legislation cannot be overstated. The bill would grant the NCAA and the College Sports Commission a long-sought limited antitrust exemption, enabling them to enforce rules governing athlete eligibility, transfers, and compensation ostensibly without the constant threat of state court litigation or competing state NIL regimes. The attempted antitrust shield, which has eluded the industry through years of failed legislative attempts – including the recently withdrawn SCORE Act – is the structural foundation on which the rest of the bill’s reforms rest. At the same time, the bill formalizes key elements of the House v. NCAA settlement into federal law, codifying the revenue-sharing framework while empowering the College Sports Commission (CSC) to police alleged above-cap spending – which the CSC has asserted includes the redirecting of corporate sponsorship dollars to rosters as third-party NIL to circumvent the $21.3 million annual cap.

For some programs utilizing creative measures to compensate their athletes, passage of this bill would represent a fundamental change in the compliance environment. The bill also limits in-season coaching movement, prohibits the formation of a so-called super league, creates an agent registry capping representation fees at 5%, and permits the pooling of media rights – all provisions that carry direct contractual and governance consequences for athletic departments and conference offices.

If this bill is enacted into law, institutions will face substantial operational and legal challenges. The transfer restriction provisions alone – limiting athletes to one transfer before a mandatory eligibility pause, with narrow exceptions – will require universities to revisit their roster management strategies, revisit NIL and revenue-sharing contract structures, and reexamine how those agreements interact with transfer portal activity. The bill’s provisions around athlete health, safety, and academic protections establish new mandatory standards that institutions will be required to meet, creating potential exposure for schools that fall short. The agent registry and fee-cap provisions will require robust compliance frameworks for athletic departments accustomed to operating in a largely unregulated agent market. And, while codifying the House settlement structure may bring stability, it also locks institutions into a compensation model still under active appellate review for its Title IX implications.. Equally notable is what the bill does not resolve: it leaves the employment status of athletes largely open, explicitly preserving the possibility that athletes could eventually be deemed employees or pursue collective bargaining. For institutions, that means managing long-term labor risk under a federal framework that has not foreclosed the most consequential question in the industry.

The path to enactment remains uncertain. The bill’s reception has already revealed fault lines within the industry itself, as the SEC and Big Ten commissioners were notably absent from a letter endorsing the bill signed by ACC and Big 12 leadership, and SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey has publicly questioned the process of endorsing legislation before reviewing the final draft. Nonetheless, the bipartisan architecture of the bill gives it a realistic chance of advancing further than its predecessors. Universities and conferences should not wait for final passage to begin preparing. The attorneys at Duane Morris’s Sports Law Group are closely monitoring the bill’s progress and are available to assist universities, conferences, and other industry stakeholders in navigating the legal implications as this legislation develops.