April 24, 2026

Earlier this week, the Chicago Bears’ long-threatened exodus from the city came one step closer to reality, as the Illinois House of Representatives passed a measure granting the team property tax certainty should they build a new stadium in suburban Arlington Heights. This House bill was only the latest development in a widespread civic conversation on the relationship between the city and its professional sports teams. Against this backdrop, a team of Harris MPP and MSCAPP students—Charlie Schraw, Christina Tsai, and Liz Williams—set forth a sweeping call to restructure how the city uses its public money to fund stadium deals and negotiate with teams—winning the 2025–2026 Harris Policy Innovation Challenge (HPIC) and taking home $10,000 in prize money.

With their certificates.

In their proposal, Charlie Schraw, MPP Class of 2026, Christine Tsai, MSCAPP Class of 2027, and Liz Williams, MPP Class of 2026, called for the establishment of a new Stadium Securitization Corporation (SSC), modeled after Chicago’s Sales Tax Securitization Corporation (STSC). The new SSC would serve as a bankruptcy-remote entity to separate any stadium liabilities from the City’s general credit. By consolidating legacy obligations and new debt into this single entity, the SSC establishes a fiscally responsible, disciplined approach, including legally lock-boxing revenue to prevent misappropriation, improving credit ratings and investor confidence, and enforcing safeguards that ensure a declining debt trajectory.

“Our plan allows the city to come to the negotiating table with leverage, not desperation,” said team member Liz Williams. “We’re not asking Chicago to construct a wealth of new development—we’re asking it to better use what it already has. We sincerely hope the city considers this plan.”

The team presenting

The winning plan encompassed considerations ranging from hirings requirements for local residents, as well as commitments for affordable housing, public transit access, and climate resilience, requiring alignment with Chicago’s Climate Action Plan and a minimum LEED Gold rating for sports facilities. Schraw, Tsai, and Williams also proposed that stadiums guarantee at least 150 days of annual usage, with 20% or more of those days reserved for community groups. They also called for a 30-year non-relocation covenant for pro sports franchises, aiming to ensure long-term benefits for the city.

The three finalist teams pitched their ideas to a slate of judges from the worlds of business, city government, and community development: David Wells, former CFO of Netflix; Bill Conway, alderman of Chicago’s 34th Ward; Tovah McCord, executive director of Nicor Illinois Community Investment; Mike Parker, former Americas Infrastructure Leader of Ernst & Young; and Derek Douglas, president of the Commercial Club of Chicago and the Civic Committee.

“Every year, our HPIC student competitors rise to the occasion with the rigor, thoughtfulness, and depth of their solutions to a pressing local issue,” said Research Professor Justin Marlowe, who directs the Center for Municipal Finance and leads the competition. “The focus of this year’s contest—the multifaceted issues surrounding Chicago’s professional sports teams—are deeply rooted in the city’s municipal checkbook and civic heart. Our finalists this year all delivered novel and deeply considered approaches to a topic of huge significance to the city’s finances—and, indeed, its pride.”

The Harris Policy Innovation Challenge was started in 2023, with the impetus of the idea coming from King Harris, and previous installments focused on the city’s unfunded pension liabilities and revitalizing the Loop. Reflecting on the contest’s life so far, Marlowe said, “The platform that this contest has created over the past three years has truly raised the conversation around many major policy issues. It is an incredible illustration of the many good things that can happen when smart, savvy young people ask themselves: What happens when we look at this issue a little differently?”

“This year’s focus on pro sport teams brought with it a number of fascinating real-world twists and turns,” said Marlowe, “not least of which was the evolving back-and-forth around the fate of several of the city’s sports teams. As one example of the real-world importance of the topic, Illinois State Representative Kam Buckner had to leave his seminar with the HPIC participants early so he could head straight to a negotiation session with the Bears. It was a perfect illustration of how our students navigated what happens when the landscape changes right in front of you.”

This year’s contest takes place amid a historic era for Chicago and professional sports, as teams including the Bears, the Fire, the Sky, and the Red Stars are all re-envisioning their relationships to the city itself. Nearly ninety UChicago students comprising sixteen teams took part in the contest, engaging in a six-month seminar where they worked closely with mentors from the public and private sectors. They also attended lectures from speakers including Steven Mahr, the city of Chicago’s acting CFO, and Danny Ecker, commercial real estate reporter at Crain’s Chicago Business, providing new perspectives and broadening the ideas they brought to their proposals.

Highlights of the ideas pitched included a call to require a voter referendum for any new public subsidies, a long-term restructuring of Soldier Field’s ownership structure, and a requirement that pro sports teams sell a small, minority equity stake to the city via the establishment of a new Chicago Sports Authority.

Research Professor Justin Marlowe has led the program since its inception.

The proposal from Andres Camacho Baquero, MSCAPP Class of 2026, Alison Collard de Beaufort, MPP Class of 2026, Joe diTomasso MPP Class of 2026, and Taha Rashid, MPP Class of 2026, proposed shifting costs and control to private franchises—while keeping teams in the city through long-term lease agreements. Under their plan, Chicago would retain public ownership of pro sports stadiums while offering the tenants full operational control.

The plan presented by Anna Chaeeun Koh, MPP Class of 2027, Firouz Niazi, MPP Class of 2028, and Lyndsey Wang, MPP/MBA Class of 2028, called for entirely new governance structures and explored the idea of municipal ownership stakes in professional teams. Their dual-track model advocated for the establishment of a new Chicago Sports Authority (CHISA) as well as the introduction of sustained public minority equity stakes in sports teams. The Chicago Sports Authority would issue revenue-backed bonds to fund stadium-adjacent infrastructure like transit, public space, and district development. These bonds would be repaid from stadium revenues, such as hospitality, entertainment, and local tax streams, rather than the City’s general fund, limiting fiscal exposure while enabling large-scale investment. In parallel, the team also advised for a supplemental strategy of public minority equity stakes—in other words, a small purchase of the sport team itself by CHISA.

While the judges deliberated on the three presentations, the finalists fielded questions from the audience on subjects including land use, sustainability, and transportation policy. The audience at the final event also included journalists from the Chicago Sun-Times, Block Club Chicago, and The Bond Buyer. 

“The annual Policy Innovation Challenge is a vivid illustration of so much of what is best about Harris,” said Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, dean and Sydney Stein Professor at the Harris School. “These students have not only engaged in serious, engaged thinking and data analysis—they have really gotten their hands dirty to tackle a major real-world policy problem. That is what we are here to do.”