If You Build It, They Will Come

 When I was born, there was already a professional football team in the area for which I could root. I grew up rooting for the Denver Broncos because they were literally the only game in town. I lived through more than my share of ups and downs with this franchise. By the time they reached their first Super Bowl, I was seventeen years old. 

The Denver Broncos did not win that Super Bowl. Through the 1980s, they struggled to remain relevant and flirted with success, appearing in three more championship games before finally coming out on the winning end of things. 

By this point, I was no longer a resident of the Denver Metro Area. I had moved to Oakland, California where I wore my orange and blue with pride and a little bit of fear in the heart of Raiders Country. Just for good measure, the Denver Broncos went ahead and won a second Super Bowl the very next year. I felt pretty smug about having a hometown team with those credentials. 

If you've spent any time poking around here, you've probably heard this song before. Again and again. But what struck me this week was the news that the Chicago Bears were moving ahead with plans to relocate their team to Hammond, Indiana. For perspective's sake, the Chicago Football Bears were founded in September 1920. For more than one hundred years, "da Bears" have been a cornerstone of what we understand as the National Football League. Those first couple of years, they played their games in Decatur, Illinois, so they weren't exactly Chicago Bears. In 1922, they moved to Wrigley Field to play their home games on the same grass where their ursine baseball counterparts on the North Side played. 

That's where you would find them, most autumn Sundays since. Until they move to another state. 

I have a great deal of sympathy for fan bases that lose their sports teams to new locales. Oakland has a somewhat tragic track record of misplacing their football, basketball and baseball teams. The Raiders have left Oakland twice, once for Los Angeles, and once again for Las Vegas. There are still plenty of folks hanging on desperately to their silver and black gear with the notion that the team somehow owes them something. Or they owe the team something. 

Like loyalty? 

When the 2026-27 NFL season starts, the Chicago Bears will still be the Chicago Bears. The Denver Broncos will still the Denver Broncos. The San Francisco Forty-Niners play in Santa Clara. The Baltimore Colts now play in Indianapolis. The Cleveland Browns now play in Baltimore with a new mascot: The Ravens. St. Louis had the Cardinals but gave them up to Arizona. Then St. Louis had the Rams, but they gave them back to Los Angeles. Houston has their Texans, but they probably don't notice that the Tennessee Titans bear more than a passing resemblance to what used to be the Houston Oilers. 

There is no crying in baseball, according to the guy who used to sell hot dogs at Oakland A's games. But I'm guessing a few tears will be shed in Chicago.