Bears Offer Share Of Naming-Rights Deal To Veterans Groups

The Bears yesterday offered to donate $200,000 per year to military veterans groups "for as long as 30 years, hoping to soften the blow off adding a corporate name" to Soldier Field, according to Spielman & Moffett of the CHICAGO SUN-TIMES. Bears President Ted Phillips "offered to take as much as $6[M] off the top of a corporate naming rights agreement," but a corporation "could pay as much as $300[M] over that time to attach its name." Phillips made the offer as the Chicago Park District voted to "give its final sign-off ... to four agreements that form the legal underpinnings" of Soldier Field's $587M renovation. Phillips, on the team's offer: "It's not being done to silence the critics. We're doing it to show our commitment to honor all of America's veterans — both symbolically and in substance. As long as we have a naming rights agreement, we'll make an annual contribution to veterans' causes. We'll sit down with the Park District, talk about the various veterans groups and decide where the money will go" (CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, 7/12). In Chicago, Liam Ford writes Chicago Mayor Richard Daley "made it clear he was growing impatient with attempts by critics to either delay or kill a project that parks advocates and preservationists say is aesthetically grotesque and being ramrodded to completion without a serious public input" (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 7/12).

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