As if the collection of Chicago teams looking for a new stadium wasn’t long enough, you can now throw the Chicago Fire into the mix as well. The team is in the early stages of looking at potential sites for a soccer-specific stadium in the city, alongside the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Bears, who are also shopping for new local homes.
But will a new home fix what ails the Fire?
The team has consistently struggled to draw fans to their games. The team’s performance certainly hasn’t helped anything, finishing better than 8th place in their conference only once in the last ten years. Fans expectations are pretty low, and there’s little buzz about the team locally.
But the stadium location has hurt the team as well. After spending the 2006-2019 seasons playing in Bridgeview, an inconvenient and public-transit-inaccessible location on the south side of the city, the team moved back to Soldier Field in 2020, hoping to draw a bigger audience. However, with an average attendance in Bridgeview of 15,500 versus 16,500 at Soldier Field (a stadium that has three times as many seats), the difference has been negligible. While the team did report an average per-game attendance of over 21,000 fans in 2024, that number was inflated by the 55,000-person attendance versus Inter Miami (even though Lionel Messi didn’t play).
Many local fans lament the Fire playing at Soldier Field, even though it’s been the sold out (and pretty popular) home of the Chicago Bears since 1971. Many of the complaints are that the stadium is too big and not meant for soccer. While that may be true, other MLS teams play in NFL stadiums, including Atlanta FC, Charlotte FC, the Seattle Sounders, and the New England Revolution. And how have they fared? Well, in 2024, those four teams were all tops in both per game and total attendance. So, if it has worked in those places, why can’t it work in Chicago?
The reality is that it probably could, if the team performed better and had more buzz amongst fans. But that doesn’t mean that a new building wouldn’t add value. At this point, most MLS teams have built soccer-specific venues, and by all accounts, those stadiums have helped expand the popularity and success of the league.
So is a new stadium the answer? Well, as with almost every other team that builds a new venue, there would likely be an instant surge in attention and interest. And, if done right, it might give the Fire a fresh chance at developing an expanded audience. There’s always a honeymoon period with new stadiums, and the Fire would likely have one as well.
But for the moment, home is Soldier Field, and the Fire need to make the best of it.
One thing we will say, though, is that while the White Sox and Bears struggle to finance new stadiums because of their demands for public money from the city and state, Fire ownership went on the record this week as blunt as we’ve ever heard an ownership team about the public versus private financing issue.
Joe Mansueto, the team’s owner, told The Athletic “My personal view is that stadiums are not a great investment. They’re big, costly to maintain, sit empty most of the time. And so to the extent that they create value, most of that accrues to the sports team, not the municipality.”
He continued, “So to me, it’s fair that the sports team should own it. Moreover, here in Illinois, in the City of Chicago, our finances are strained. Teachers want more money, law enforcement needs money, pension obligations. Our city and state don’t have the funds, to be candid, and so to me, we would privately finance it.”
Kudos to Mansueto, not only for reading the current tea leaves properly, as both the White Sox and Bears have gotten virtually nowhere with their lobbying efforts, but also for his willingness to understand how many priorities the city of Chicago has, and where a luxury item like a new stadium should fall.
So if the Fire want to pay for a shiny new stadium, we say go for it. The fans would love it, and if it could anchor valuable development in the city without interfering with residential neighborhoods, then everyone would win.
