After months of uncertainty, the Chicago Red Stars finally have resolution on a match conflict next month.
The Red Stars are keeping their nationally televised home game Sept. 21 against the San Diego Wave at SeatGeek Stadium in Bridgeview, with Riot Fest announcing Wednesday it is moving the annual music festival back to Douglass Park.
The club had faced pressure by the village of Bridgeview to move the game to accommodate Riot Fest holding its three-day event at SeatGeek.
“I feel I’m coming to this gig from a perspective of valuing the players, and so for me to be whipsawed or have the team be whipsawed is a really emotional thing,” Red Stars President Karen Leetzow told the Tribune. “It’s hard to do right by the players when you’re being put in these kind of positions. It’s hard to run a business when you’re being put in these kind of positions.
“So for me, it’s a tremendous relief that we’re able to get this done.”
The saga began in late spring when Bridgeview Mayor Steven Landek requested a meeting with the team’s higher-ups, Leetzow said. The parties got together at a Red Stars game, where Landek requested the team vacate the stadium Sept. 21 and offered a small check as compensation, according to Leetzow.
Leetzow, though, noted the financial offer did not come close to covering the costs the team would incur to move the match, which is scheduled to begin at 8:30 p.m. and air on Ion.
“If we can be a good partner and we can find a place to play, we will look at it,” Leetzow recalled telling Landek. “And so we did that.”
The Red Stars looked at venues around the city, including Soldier Field, but no places were suitable for the game. That information was conveyed to Landek, Leetzow said, and the Red Stars assumed that was the end of it until Riot Fest’s outside counsel called her in June to inform the team it was about to sign a contract to hold the festival at SeatGeek Stadium.
“We were blindsided and blown away because the mayor didn’t tell us why he wanted us to leave,” Leetzow said. “And so this was the first kind of like, oh, my god, really, you’re going to try and hold a five- or six-stage rock concert at the same time that we’re holding one of our nationally televised games?”
The Red Stars subsequently pursued a variety of paths, including legalistic inquiries with the village of Bridgeview to try to ensure it could follow through on its claim of being able to hold a music festival on the same site while not interfering with the soccer match. The team had multiple concerns about security and how players, staff and fans would be able to get in and out of the venue while rock concerts were performing concurrently.
“We’ve been exchanging these letters all summer with really nothing that made us feel like this was going to work,” Leetzow said. “Luckily for us, we’re in a league in which we have some great friends.”
The Kansas City Current reached out to the Red Stars and offered to host the Red Stars-Wave game at CPKC Stadium, which wouldn’t be in use on that date. United Airlines offered to fly Red Stars players, associates and even some fans to Kansas City to mitigate the cost of changing venues.
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As recently as Friday, the Red Stars planned to move the match to Kansas City. Then on her commute home that day, Leetzow received a call from Riot Fest organizers, who informed her they were moving the festival back to Douglass Park, where it has been held since 2015.
The Red Stars were within two days of formally announcing the venue change for their Sept. 21 match and had prepared news releases while finalizing details with the Current. Leetzow spoke glowingly of the Current and their efforts to help the Red Stars.
“I mean, I don’t know how to explain their culture,” Leetzow said, “other than every single person is for the game and ‘Midwestern nice,’ which, before I moved here, I didn’t think was a real thing.”
After the monthslong ordeal, the Red Stars and Riot Fest plan to cross-promote each other’s events “to foster strong community ties and celebrate the achievements of women in sports.” The Red Stars will have a booth at Riot Fest for potential fans to learn more about the club, play games and have a chance at winning tickets to an upcoming match.
The Red Stars, meanwhile, will host “Riot Fest Night” at their Nov. 3 match against the Current, which will be presented by Rush University Medical Center and will feature a corresponding Riot Fest ticket offer, co-branded merchandise and a Riot Fest presence in the Red Stars Fan Zone.
“They were very excited to have an opportunity to go back to the city, and we’re going to make lemonade out of this and it’s going to be a win,” Leetzow said. “We’re working on some interesting marketing plans together, so we’re going from competing to collaborating and we’re really excited about it.”
While Leetzow and the Red Stars are relieved the situation has been resolved for the Sept. 21 match, it doesn’t eliminate concerns that something like this could happen again as long as the club doesn’t own its own stadium and facilities. The Red Stars’ stadium agreement ends in December 2025, and Leetzow reiterated that they must build a venue.
“The only solution for us is to really keep pushing this stadium solution within the city proper where we have control of our dates, we have control of our training time,” Leetzow said. “Otherwise I am going to face this again because if it’s more lucrative to host a concert, then we will be asked, I’m sure, to do this again.”
As efforts by the Bears and White Sox to secure public stadium funding from the city and state have struggled to gain traction, Leetzow still contends the Red Stars need a public-private partnership to build a stadium and meet the club’s necessities.
“Our position has always been that not only should we be at the table if there’s money to be given,” Leetzow said, “I actually believe that equity demands that even if the Bears and White Sox don’t get any funding, we’re now in the state of our history in women’s sports that women should still get some kind of state or federal funding for the things that they’re trying to do.
“Because policy decisions were made in the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s to give this money to men’s sports, they now become these huge juggernauts. We will not get there without the same level of investment, and it’s inequitable to say that we don’t deserve it.
“At the end of the day, if you want women’s sports to grow, both as an economic engine, as an investment, as a culture carrier within your city, we have to find that support.”