BULLS MARKETS: POWER, PLACE, AND PROFESSIONAL SPORT IN LATE TWENTIETH-CENTURY CHICAGO BY SEAN DINCES B.S., UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY, 2004 A.M., UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT SAN DIEGO, 2006 A.M., BROWN UNIVERSITY, 2013 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF AMERICAN STUDIES AT BROWN UNIVERSITY PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND MAY 2014 © Copyright 2014 by Sean Dinces This dissertation by Sean Dinces is accepted in its present form by the Department of American Studies as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date _______________ ________________________________ Elliott J. Gorn, Advisor Recommended to the Graduate Council Date _______________ ________________________________ Larry Bennett, Reader Date _______________ ________________________________ John R. Logan, Reader Date _______________ ________________________________ Robert O. Self, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date _______________ ________________________________ Peter M. Weber, Dean of the Graduate School iii Curriculum Vitae Sean Dinces was born on June 11, 1982 in Corona, California. He received his B.S. in History from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland in 2004. He earned an M.A. in History in 2006 from the University of California at San Diego. He matriculated to Brown in 2008 to begin doctoral work in the Ph.D. program in American Studies. In May 2013, he received his M.A. in Urban Education Policy from Brown as part of the first cohort of Open Graduate Education students. His dissertation research was funded by two year-long Brown University Graduate School fellowships, as well as by supplementary funding from the Open Graduate Education Program. From Summer 2012 – Summer 2013, he served as a graduate research intern for the Quest Center at the Chicago Teachers Union. While at Brown, he authored academic reviews for Academe, the Journal of Sport History, and Sport in Society, as well as academic articles for Critical Sociology and the International Journal of the History of Sport. iv Acknowledgements If this project is worth anything, it’s due first and foremost to the generosity of the mentors, colleagues, friends, and family who have put up with me for the past five years. Elliott Gorn actually took enough time away from complaining about the Cubs to be a first-rate advisor. He saved me from many bad decisions, and his feedback helped my writing go from bad to mediocre. He has been exceedingly patient as both a professional mentor and friend throughout the dissertation process, from the moment he suggested the idea of writing about the Bulls. I also benefited tremendously from a dynamic and dedicated group of dissertation readers. Robert Self provided incredibly thoughtful advice on the conceptual framing of each chapter in addition to rigorous commentary on the strengths and weaknesses of my evidence. He has been a consistent role model as both a teacher and mentor, and my understanding of modern American history owes most to his lectures and seminars. Larry Bennett’s willingness to share his expertise in urban planning and the political history of Chicago proved invaluable as I tried to write about the city’s history as an outsider. I hope this dissertation continues the rich tradition of critical scholarship on Chicago of which his work is a centerpiece. Finally, John Logan not only provided me with a vibrant intellectual home in Brown’s institute for Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences (S4), but also lent vital insights from the vantage point of urban sociology. Several other faculty, staff members, and students at Brown supplied crucial intellectual and logistical support. As preliminary field advisors, Anne Fausto-Sterling and Anthony Bogues inspired me to ignore disciplinary boundaries. Sandy Zipp, Naoko Shibusawa, Catherine Lutz, Anne Valk, and Seth Rockman provided much-needed v informal mentorship throughout my time as a PhD student, and Mari-Jo Buhle’s encouragement during my first year at Brown convinced me that I was in the right place. Susan Smulyan, Robert Lee, Ralph Rodriguez, and Rich Meckel all made American Studies a nourishing intellectual and professional home base. Faculty members in the Sociology and Education departments graciously welcomed me—a lowly historian—into their classrooms and offices. In particular, David Lindstrom, Leah VanWey, Kenneth Wong, and John Papay all gave me the opportunity to explore new intellectual approaches and methodologies. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Margot Jackson, who not only answered far too many of my stats questions, but also generously shared her insights about life as a junior faculty member. And also to Rachel Franklin who, as Associate Director of S4, fielded a steady barrage of queries about GIS and gave me repeated opportunities to share my work with other spatial researchers on campus. In addition, Pier Dominguez, Chris Elias, and all of the student participants in Brown’s “Capital and Culture” Mellon Dissertation Completion Workshop offered crucial commentary on early iterations of this project. Finally, Jeff Cabral is the best department manager out there, even though he’s a Red Sox fan (we’re all human, after all). He truly was the man with all the answers; without him I never could have navigated the bureaucratic maze that is graduate school. Many scholars and staff from other institutions nurtured my interest in history and urban studies, and several were kind enough to offer important feedback on this dissertation. David Peeler supported my pursuits in cultural history as an undergraduate at Annapolis, and Nayan Shah’s faith in my abilities brought me into a rich intellectual community at UCSD. Several conversations with Costas Spirou helped reassure me that vi there was much more to be written about the United Center. I owe a special thanks to Robert Edelman at UCSD, who has been a staunch advocate, friend, and intellectual sounding board for the entirety of the last decade. He showed me that sports history deserved real attention, and has been behind me 100% since I arrived in San Diego in 2004. In addition, Wayne Wilson and the staff at the Amateur Athletic Foundation Library in Los Angeles have been a godsend in terms of tracking down obscure source material, as have the always-knowledgeable librarians and archivists at the Chicago History Museum and Municipal Reference Collection at Harold Washington Library Center. While it’s probably best that I don’t mention any of them by name, several people at the offices of the Cook County Assessor, Cook County Board of Review, and Cook County Clerk went out of their way to help me track down elusive data on the fiscal and financial histories of the United Center. This dissertation simply could not have been written without the support of a phenomenal group of friends and colleagues in Chicago. Christopher Lamberti (the one- man Adam Dunn fan club), Milena Sjekloca, Vijay Pendakur, Katie van Tiem, Elena Gonzales, and Simon Goldbroch all opened their guestrooms and kitchens to me even though they probably should have thought better of it. Ben Joravsky put his muckraking on hold to help me navigate the labyrinth that is the Cook County property tax system, and was a constant source of encouragement from start to finish. Carol Caref, Sarah Hainds, Pavlyn Jankov, and Kurth Hilgendorf not only taught me the ins-and-outs of strategic labor research during my internship with the Chicago Teachers Union, but also gave me the opportunity to connect my dissertation research to the real world. Elliott Mallen also generously shared his expertise in dealing with property tax appeals. vii I’m extremely grateful to those in Chicago and elsewhere who agreed to be interviewed for this dissertation, especially to Mark Weinberg, Bill Wilen, and Thom Finerty, all of whom sat down for repeated follow-ups. Charlie Beyer, Walter Burnett, Jr., Earnest Gates, Annie Kostiner, Lewis Kostiner, and Ed Shurna also went out of their way to sit down with me and share their respective stories. It’s a wonder that I have any friends left at this point; they all deserve a medal (or better yet, a tax break). The ones that have been with me since San Diego will always have a special place in my heart: a lot of love to Viviana MacManus, Tina Park, Yumi Pak, Caralyn Bialo, Jodi Eisenberg, Gordan Chang, Jeff Lundy, Nicole Kuo, and Dixa Ramirez. My Providence comrades have been an absolute godsend. The aforementioned Chris Lamberti, Will Brucher, Wen Jin, Mercedes Lyson, Kevin Barry, Sara Matthiesen, Lindsay Goss, Alma Carrillo, Oddný Helgadóttir, Cornel Ban, Malgorzata Rymsza- Pawlowska, Sarah Seidman, Koji Masutani, Julie Pittman, Leah Nahmias, Heather Lee, Maria Hwang, Katharine Joo, John Rosenberg, Elizabeth Searcy and Maria José Boccardi all left the glass seeming half full. Pier Dominguez, Majida Kargbo, Crystal Ngo, Colleen Tripp, Horace Ballard, and Liz Wolfson made Am Studies an absolute joy—there’s not a better group around. Robyn Schroeder was the rock of my cohort, and I can’t forget to thank the graduate students in UEP (esp. Mike Katz, Gabe Santner, Mark Cruz, and Kate Bubrick), S4 (esp. Tim Squires, Michael Zuher, and Weiwei Zhang), and the sociology department at Brown for taking so kindly to an interloper. I’m also truly thankful for the enduring friendship of Jake Steele, Laura McDonald, Scott McDonald, Tim Snow, Chad Cleveland, Mike Holland, David Ahlers, Shefali Mistry, and Gintien Huang, as well as viii the professionalism and supportiveness of Constance Hiller, Pouneh Fazeli, and Billy Brennan. Oh yeah. Through thick and thin, Derek Seidman was present. My biggest thanks are reserved for my parents, Lucy and Jerry, who have made this project possible in more ways than they know. Saner parents would have disowned me long ago.