A bill in the Iowa State Senate was introduced Tuesday seeking an expansion of its economic growth attraction program with a goal of luring an NFL franchise to the state, specifically the Chicago Bears.
“While Illinois and Indiana squabble over this issue, we are ready to get off the sidelines and into the game,” Iowa state Sen. Kerry Gruenhagen (R-Walcott) said in a statement and first reported by The Des Moines Register. “Bringing an NFL team to Iowa would attract jobs, tourism and fans to our state and give us the opportunity to showcase what Iowa really has to offer. Iowans have dedicated themselves to our college sports teams, and we’re ready to attract a professional team to our great state.”
The state’s MEGA program provides economic development incentives designed to attract capital investments. The bill, which was sponsored by seven Iowa Republican senators, seeks to modify the MEGA program to include language for building an NFL stadium. As listed in the bill, among the incentives are tax refunds and credits.
With the Bears seeking a new stadium in the Chicagoland area, Iowa state Sen. Scott Webster said in a statement that Iowa can offer the franchise “everything they need to build a world-class facility, tax certainty and the public infrastructure they need.”
Webster, who represents the Mississippi River town of Bettendorf, recommended eastern Iowa as a primary location for a potential stadium. Webster told Radio Iowa, “You (are) driving traffic from Des Moines. You’re going to drive traffic from up near Madison — not everybody in Wisconsin is a Packers fan. You’re going to draw from St. Louis to a centralized location where they could fill that stadium each year. I think it’s the perfect place for it, if they want to do it.”
The Quad Cities straddle the Iowa-Illinois border with a greater metropolitan area approaching 500,000 residents. Davenport, Iowa, is the largest of the Quad Cities communities and is located about 130 miles west of Chicago’s suburbs. Residents in the eastern part of Iowa primarily follow the Chicago Bears as their favorite NFL team, although the Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings are also heavily followed in the region. College sports, however, provide the entertainment lifeblood within Iowa.
The region does have a history with the NFL dating to the league’s beginning. The Rock Island (Ill.) Independents were an NFL charter franchise and the Chicago Bears’ first rival. George Halas regularly stayed across the Mississippi River in Davenport, Iowa, when the Bears faced the Independents. The Independents dropped out of the NFL following the 1925 season to play in Red Grange’s startup AFL operation in 1926. They folded a year later, but their playing field remains in operation at Douglas Park.
It seems far-fetched to believe Iowa could land an NFL franchise, either by the Bears relocating two hours west or through expansion. Iowa’s population has stagnated for nearly a century, with 3.19 million residents, according to the 2020 Census. In the 1960 Census, for instance, Iowa had 2.75 million residents.
Green Bay, Wis., is the NFL’s smallest market, with an estimated metro population of about 330,000.