Windy City Gridiron
Does anyone have a hundred million dollars lying around?
As reported by Bloomberg, the Chicago Bears are weighing their options of selling the minority interest in the team held by the late Andrew McKenna Sr.’s estate.
Virginia Halas McCaskey, who passed away earlier this year, was the largest shareholder and had voting rights, with her family holding a stake in the majority of the franchise.
Pat Ryan, who just massively invested in a new stadium for the University of Northwestern, is the next largest shareholder.
The Halas and McCaskey families and Ryan would most likely be allowed to purchase McKenna’s small percentage of the club [2% per Wikipedia, citing an old Crain’s Chicago Business article now archived, so that number may not be accurate], but with the Bears recently valued at $6.4 billion, that stake could fetch an incredible amount.
I’m not sure what a sale would do for the Bears’ ongoing stadium project, so if we have a finance guy who could jump in the comment section, that would be great!
