Bears 2025 Schedule Released: Three Fire Games Likely Impacted
While the NFL schedule release is eagerly anticipated by many sports fans throughout Chicago, it is met instead with trepidation in one place in the city: The offices of the Chicago Fire. The Fire and Bears share Soldier Field as a home venue, but the terms of the NFL franchise’s lease make it clear that they are the senior tenants. Their games – scheduled months after the Fire’s – take precedence, forcing the Fire to move already-scheduled matches out of Soldier Field.
With the NFL regular season schedule now out, three Fire home games are likely to move. While that is a mild reprieve for the Fire, who could have been required to move as many as six home games this year, it also ties the most games the Fire have had to since returning to Soldier Field in 2020.
The Bears are set to play at Soldier Field for their season opener, meaning the Fire team will have to relocate its game for September 6th against the New England Revolution. Mercifully, that is the last game of the year the Fire will have to relocate, with the Bears on the road ahead of the Fire's September 13th game against New York City FC and their September 27th game against the Columbus Crew. The Bears are on a bye week ahead of the Fire's last home game of the season on October 4th against Toronto FC.
However, the Fire likely to be without a home game at Soldier Field between July 26th and September 6th. The two Fire home games in August likely conflict with the Bears two preseason home games, although at time of publication, the first Bears home game, which they are listed as hosting, is listed with the date, time and location to be determined. That means the Los Angeles FC will still have never played at Soldier Field, and the Fire's derby against St. Louis will now have to be moved to the much smaller SeatGeek.
The terms of the Bears’ lease gives them scheduling exclusivity for a five day period before games, and the team retains scheduling priority over Fire matches, even for other events like preseason meet-and-greets. That means that it is possible that more Fire matches may be impacted.
Chicago Fire sources familiar with have told MIR97 Media that the team does not get advanced notice from the Bears or Chicago Park District, the landlord at Soldier Field, about the NFL schedule. That leaves the Chicago Fire The team is likely to make an official announcement on the venue change for the matches later this week. That is a markedly faster turnaround from several years ago, when the team had to negotiate terms for using SeatGeek Stadium.
Although the team has long used the suburban stadium for tournament matches, including the U.S. Open Cup and Leagues Cup, moving regular season games has a larger impact for the team. Last year, five Fire’s average attendance was 21,327, an all-time team record that exceeds SeatGeek’s capacity of 20,000. Seven Fire home games last year drew crowds in excess of that number, including every weekend match after Memorial Day, save for the two games held at SeatGeek.
SeatGeek, né Toyota Park, was a state-of-the-art MLS facility when it opened in 2006, in recent years, it has been showing its age, and pitch quality issues have become more prominent in recent seasons.
The stadium’s location has also been a bugbear for all its tenants. During the time that the Fire called the venue home, the team tried to appeal to urban fans without cars through a “Pub to Pitch” program that shuttled fans from several Chicago-area bars to the venue, but despite a brief revival for SeatGeek matches, that program has largely ended. A shuttle bus from the Midway Orange Line station to SeatGeek events also ended during the pandemic and has yet to return, with the suburban bus operator citing staffing issues.
That leaves the group of transit-dependent fans that the Fire have been able to cultivate since returning to the city, particularly those who may have already purchased tickets, whether as single-game tickets or as part of a package, in a bind as there are effectively no effective transit options to return from the venue given PACE scheduling for nearby buses.
Soldier Field, meanwhile, has also had pitch quality issues, particularly when the Bears are in season. While the Bears can claim a five-day exclusivity period before home games, the Fire have chosen to play as soon as the day following gridiron games in the past.
Despite the issues, they are likely to be temporary: Both the Fire and Bears are planning exits from the historic venue, with Fire owner Joe Mansueto committing to privately financing any future soccer stadium for the team. The Bears, meanwhile, have reportedly shifted focus back to Arlington Heights as a location for a new stadium after an on-again-off-again flirtation with building a new, publicly subsidized, venue in the city limits.
