March 14, 2024- South Side Weekly’s Malachi Hayes interviewed me for an article on the latest stadium funding shenanigans in Chicago. Jerry Reinsdorf is back at it, looking to draw the city and state into financing a new park for the White Sox decades after the team secured one of the most generous public funding deals history.

March 5, 2024- As reports of new stadium plans swirl around the Windy City, the Chicago Reader’s Joe Engleman did a Q&A with me about local sports facility politics. We got into past deals, present proposals, and the future of activism around the use of public resources for new stadiums. He did a very nice job distilling my rambling into a coherent transcript and it was a pleasure talking with him. 

March 31, 2023- I had the chance to present as part of a panel organized by Prof. Michael Gambone on “Conspiracy Theories in Modern American History” at the 2023 meeting of the Organization of American Historians. The conversation ranged C-SPAN recently posted a video recording of the panel. If you have a chance, check out Prof. Gambone’s excellent new book, Modern Conspiracies in America: Separating Fact from Fiction.

February 10, 2023- TruthOut’s Derek Seidman asked me to provide some commentary for his latest piece, entitled “We Already Know Who’s Winning Superbowl LVii—The Billionaire Class.” Seidman writes, “Sports ownership today—in the NFL and beyond—should be seen less as a niche business venture and more as a link in the wider chain of elite class rule aimed at accumulating ever more wealth at the expense of workers and the public.”

September 14, 2022- Bulls Markets is now available in paperback! To mark the occasion, the journal Urban Studies published a review of the new edition! The review’s author, Glenn Houlihan of the University of Iowa’s Department of American Studies, writes that the book “goes beyond existing scholarship that acknowledges publicly subsidised sports facilities are poor engines of economic growth. Instead, Dinces sees teams such as the Bulls – which have soared in profitability since the 1980s – as enthusiastic participants in broader political and economic transformations that have catalysed a sharp upward redistribution of wealth in the United States during the past four decades.”

November 01, 2021- Derek Seidman and I co-authored a piece for the Washington Post on the history that explains why democratic socialist India Walton is on the cusp of becoming the next mayor of Buffalo. We argue that Walton has tapped into the mounting discontent in America's cities, especially residents’ frustration with over half a century of urban revitalization initiatives have failed to combat the social and economic consequences of deindustrialization.

BULLS Markets featured in cta’s “lit from within“

April 07, 2021- The California Teacher’s Association was kind enough to feature Bulls Markets on its “Lit From Within” page, which showcases publications by members of the union.

BULLS Markets Reviewed in Journal of Urban History

March 25, 2021- The Journal of Urban History just dropped a review of Bulls Markets by Jill Jensen, who teaches in the Department of Business Administration and Management at the University of Redlands. The review is part of a larger essay by Jensen that also looks at The City as Factory, edited by Miriam Greenberg and Penny Lewis, and Margaret Kohn’s The Death and Life of the Urban Commonwealth.

BULLS Markets Reviewed in IJHS

November 20, 2020- University of Manchester historian Andrew Fearnley published a new review of Bulls Markets in the International Journal of the History of Sport. In Fearnley’s words, “what Dinces captures, with subtly and skill, is both the actual influence that the ‘urban sports business’ exerted over recent phases of urban development, and the sector’s exaggerated claims in accounts of neighborhood revitalization.”

BULLS Markets Reviewed in jPer

May 11, 2020- A review of Bulls Markets by Edward Goetz, Director of the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs at the University of Minnesota, just dropped in the Journal of Planning and Education Research. Goetz describes the book as “a well-written, highly readable account [….] suitable for advanced courses in urban studies, planning, and community development.”

BULLS Markets Reviewed in journal of Sport history

April 4, 2020- Raja Malikah Rahim, doctoral candidate at the University of Florida, reviewed Bulls Markets for the Sring 2020 issue of the Journal of Sport History. According to Rahim, “In Bulls Markets…Dinces analyzes how Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls of the 1990s altered the global image of Chicago and transformed the city’s urban landscape in the postindustrial era of twentieth century [….] Bulls Markets is a welcoming addition that extends the debate on sports stadiums and serves as a caution to sports fans.”

BULLS Markets Reviewed in The journal of urban affairs

February 28, 2020- The Journal of Urban Affairs, the official journal of the Urban Affairs Association, just published a review of Bulls Markets by Sociologist Aaron Howell. Howell posits, “Bulls Markets is a must read for anyone interested in the intersections of sport, politics, and the economy. It’s suitable for any class employing a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of cities, with particular relevance in the areas of urban history, sociology, and political science.”

BULLS Markets = Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2019

December 2, 2019- Choice, the official magazine of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), has selected Bulls Markets as one of its Outstanding Academic Titles for 2019!

BULLS Markets Reviewed in journal of american history

December 1, 2019- The Journal of American History, the official journal of the Organization of American Historians, published a review of Bulls Markets by historian Courtney Michelle Smith. Smith asserts, “Dinces’s book stands out because of the deft way he uses the United Center, the Bulls’ home arena, which opened in 1994, as the nexus of the different themes he analyzes in his book.”

BULLS Markets Reviewed in planning magazine

November 2019- The November 2019 issue of Planning, the official magazine of the American Planning Association, has a brief review of Bulls Markets. “Most relevant to urbanism,” according to the author of the “Planners Library” feature, “is the chapter on the development of the United Center for the Bulls on [Chicago’s] Near West Side.”

BULLS Markets Reviewed in canadian journal of urban research

June 13, 2019- Duane Rockerbie, Professor of Economics of the University of Lethbridge, recently reviewed Bulls Markets for the Summer 2019 issue of the Canadian Journal of Urban Research. According to Rockerbie, “The book provides a fascinating case study of how private-public sports infrastructure projects are done. It also demonstrates how a purely economic analysis can underestimate the true costs [of major-league stadium development.]” You can access the review here.

BULLS Markets IS THE NASSH MONOGRAPH of the year for 2019

May 28, 2019- The North American Society for Sport History named Bulls Markets its 2019 Book (Monograph) of the Year for 2019. A big thanks to the award committee for the honor!

BULLS Markets IS a CHoice Magazine Editors’ Pick

May 16, 2019- Bulls Markets is a Choice360 Editors’ Pick for May 2019! The announcement comes with a positive review from Humberto Barreto, Prof. of Economics and Management at DePauw University.

best of illinois history 2019 awards

April 29, 2019- The Illinois State Historical Society honored Bulls Markets at its 2019 Best of Illinois History Awards with an Award for Superior Achievement in Scholarly Publication. According to the Society, ”this book is an important contribution to Illinois history and the debate over publicly financed sporting venues nationally. As Dinces notes, the financing and tax rebate structures enabling construction of the United Center should be of profound concern, not just to Chicagoans, but to America at large.”

Roosevelt University history department

April 18, 2019- The faculty and undergraduates from the Department of History at Roosevelt University in Chicago hosted me for a talk on parts of the research that went into writing Bulls Markets; and they had a lot of great questions. Roosevelt is an institution with a fascinating history that dates back to the New Deal.

Univ. of illinois @ chicago CUPPA Friday Forum

March 1, 2019- I had the pleasure of sharing my findings in Bulls Markets at the “Friday Forum” hosted by Ph.D. students and faculty at the University of Illinois Chicago’s College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs (CUPPA). For more about the future CUPPA events, click here.

Cal State Northridge SPORTs studies seminar Series

February 22, 2019- The faculty from the Department of Kinesiology at California State University Northridge invited me to present to undergraduates as part of their Sports Studies Seminar Series. I shared my research on how the most recent generation of major-league stadiums and arenas have largely left working- and middle-class fans behind. For more information on the history of the CSUN Sports Studies Seminar Series, click here. On upcoming series speakers/presentations in 2019, click here.

Not Another sports show with neil parthun

February 9, 2019- Really appreciate Neil Parthun having me on Not Another Sports Show, his weekly radio program dealing with the world of sports and politics from a left/progressive perspective, to discuss Bulls Markets. You can access the episode through the web here, or download it directly (.mp3) here.

Seminary Co-op books with Dr. Larry Bennett

January 11, 2019-Thanks to Seminary Co-Op Bookstore at the University of Chicago for hosting Larry Bennett, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at DePaul University, and myself for a conversation on Bulls Markets. And thank you to those who, despite a a frigid night, showed up for the event and bought a copy of the book!

Volumes bookcafe with Miles kampf-lassin

November 9, 2019- A sincere thank you to Volumes Bookcafe in Wicker Park for providing the space for a conversation about Bulls Markets between myself and In These Times editor Miles Kampf-Lassin. And much gratitude to all those who took the time to attend and support a great local bookstore in the Second City.

uw-milwaukee urban studies fall lecture

October 28, 2016- It was an honor to return to the Badger State to deliver the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Urban Studies Fall Lecture on “Why Building New Sports Stadiums Makes the Rich Richer, and the Poor Poorer.”

UW-Milwaukee Ph.D. student Peter Lund conducted a follow-up interview with me after the talk that addressed a wide variety of issues related to the economics of sports facilities development. You can access a transcript of the interview here.