This falls under the category of sports business. However, it also is a follow-up to a sports media story I did last fall.

I did a piece in today’s Chicago Tribune on the Bears looking to monetize Halas Hall, their headquarters and training facility in Lake Forest. The team built a new event center as part of a 43,000-square foot addition.

You also can access the package, which features a video and pictures, via my twitter feed at Sherman_Report.

The Bears’ new space also includes a state-of-the-art broadcast operation. In October, I did a story for USA Today on how NFL teams also are becoming content companies.

All in all, the league continues to find news ways to print money.

Here is the excerpt to my Tribune story on the facility.

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Ted Phillips always was struck whenever visitors walked through Halas Hall. The Bears president saw their eyes darting around and the look of fascination on their faces as they toured the team’s headquarters and training facility in Lake Forest.

He realized he had an untapped commodity.

“It amazed me that they were so intrigued,” Phillips said. “Usually, the team wasn’t playing. There weren’t any players around. They loved just being where the Bears practice. It got us to start thinking, how can we do more?”

The result of the brainstorming is a new 43,000-square-foot addition to the Bears’ facility that will allow fans — at least well-connected fans — to have dramatically increased access to Halas Hall. And it will enable the Bears to make some money in the place where key decisions are made.

The sprawling facility, renovated during the past year, includes expanded locker rooms and workout areas, a new dining complex for the players, and a state-of-the-art broadcast operation for TV and radio shows produced by the Bears.

The centerpiece of the addition, from a business and marketing standpoint, is the new event center, which can seat up to 180 people. There also is an airy two-story atrium with touch screens highlighting Bears history and the current team. In another part of Halas Hall, there is a new plush skybox for VIPs to watch practice. The team also is shopping naming rights to the addition, though George Halas’ name will remain on the entire facility.

When asked if Halas Hall now is set up to become a profit center, Phillips said, “No doubt about it.”

Bears officials last week told a group of prominent team sponsors that the space is available for charity functions, business meetings, sales presentations and promotion opportunities. The message was clear: This is a chance for companies to take people behind the curtain.

“You can buy a ticket to a game,” Chris Hibbs, vice president of sales and marketing, told the gathering. “You can’t buy a ticket into this place.”

Hibbs said access will be available only to sponsors, business partners, suite owners and key philanthropic supporters.

“Would we sell space now to someone who came in off the street?” Hibbs said. “The answer is ‘no.'”

The Bears view the event center as a way to enhance the value of doing business with the team. Promotion is terrific, Hibbs said, but marketing has become about providing a different experience to clients.

“Brands across the board in sports realize the need to come up with more experiences that people can’t get elsewhere,” Hibbs said. “Not to oversell this, but it’s just different from what people have seen before. The average fan doesn’t get a chance to see this. They’re usually blown away.”