Alan Rothenberg has a story he wants to tell you. A lot of stories actually; enough to fill a book.
So he wrote one.
But that’s not the first memorable work he’s authored. As the man behind the 1984 L.A. Olympics soccer tournament and the 1994 World Cup, still the most successful in history, Rothenberg has arguably had more to do with writing the story of U.S. Soccer in the modern era than anyone.
And you can draw a straight line from that chapter to the one that will be written this summer when the World Cup returns to the U.S.
“The turning point really was the Olympics,” he said last month over brunch in a crowded Sherman Oaks diner. “That soccer was so successful in the Olympics, that’s when FIFA thought maybe we could bring our crown jewel to the United States and not be embarrassed.
“So ‘84 Olympics. That’s a crucial part of the story. I doubt that we would be where we are now but for that.”
That story’s in “The Big Bounce: The Surge That Shaped the Future of U.S. Soccer,” which is available Feb. 10. In fact, the book starts there.
But Rothenberg’s career did not. Before changing the face of U.S. Soccer, he first altered the landscape of sports in his adopted hometown, playing instrumental roles in bringing the Clippers to Los Angeles, in negotiating the trade that made Kareem Abdul-Jabbar a Laker and in settling the Kings at the Forum.
As a lawyer who started his career as the in-house counsel for Jack Kent Cooke when Cooke owned the Lakers, the Kings, the then-Washington Redskins and was launching the Wolves of the nascent NASL, Rothenberg was involved in some of the most consequential events in four sports during a career that’s nearing the end of its sixth decade. Yet he knew little about soccer when Peter Ueberroth, chair of the L.A. Olympic Organizing Committee, put him in charge of the sport for the 1984 Games.
“Peter assumed with that background I must know a lot about soccer,” Rothenberg writes. “That was wrong.”
What he lacked in soccer knowledge he more than made up for in creativity and organization skills, however, and the Olympic tournament proved to be one of the most successful in history, with the final at the Rose Bowl drawing a crowd of 104,098, a U.S. record for a soccer game that stood for 30 years.
But his name will forever be synonymous with the World Cup.
The 1994 tournament was the first to be played in a country without a first-division league and there were widespread fears it would be a disaster. Instead, it drew an average of 69,174 fans to each of the 52 games, an attendance record that still stands. It also generated a surplus of more than $50 million — also a record — money that went to the U.S. Soccer Foundation to promote the growth of the sport in the U.S.
Two years later, Major League Soccer kicked off; 30 years later it’s the sixth-most-valuable soccer league in the world.
“Everything flowed from ‘94,” Rothenberg said. “If ‘94 had not been successful, including if our [U.S.] team hadn’t been credible, I’m not sure how quickly things would have developed. Certainly we wouldn’t have been able to start Major League Soccer at that time if the World Cup wasn’t successful.”
Another rarely discussed — but hugely important — legacy of that tournament is the foundation it created in terms of experience and expertise. The U.S. had never staged a major standalone soccer competition before 1994 and the learning curve was steep. Among those who worked under Rothenberg and went on to great success in the sport were Sunil Gulati, a three-term president of U.S. Soccer; Nelson Rodriguez, now MLS executive vice-president; Marla Messing, who headed the organizing committee for the 1999 Women’s World Cup and was later interim commissioner of the NWSL; Tom King, U.S. Soccer’s longtime managing director of administration; Kathy Carter, the former executive vice-president of Soccer United Marketing and chief executive officer of U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Properties; and Charlie Stillitano, a former MLS general manager who pioneered the idea of inviting major European clubs to play summer friendlies in the U.S.
“It’s not just that the event [came] off. Look what came out of it,” said Scott LeTellier, who as managing director and chief operating officer had responsibility for day-to-day operations of the World Cup organizing committee for 1994. “All the people who worked on our committee, who had some role that now are general managers of MLS teams. The league itself that came out of it. The number of soccer facilities. We didn’t have a single soccer specific-stadium in the country.
“You can argue that the ‘94 World Cup was really the linchpin to that entire explosion in the sport.”
That tournament was ahead of its time in other ways too. It was the first to stage fan fests in host cities, the first to include musical performers at the final and the first to offer hospitality packages with the price of a ticket. It also featured a lavish opening ceremony, one that featured Diana Ross, Oprah Winfrey and President Clinton, turning what was just a soccer tournament into a global spectacle.
The World Cup hasn’t been the same since, with FIFA’s revenue growing to a projected $13 billion for the 2026 cycle. There are more than 40 countries that don’t have an economy that large.
As Rothenberg notes in his book, FIFA originally pushed back on many of the innovations he proposed, including a halftime show at the final, only to eventually adopt the ideas as their own. Rothenberg also wanted to charge $1,000 a ticket for the final in 1994, arguing that fans would pay that on the secondary market, so why let the scalpers make the profit?
“They were horrified,” he said. “You realize what a dramatic statement it would make if you had a $100-million gate?”
They do now; the cheapest regular tickets for the final of this summer’s tournament start at $2,000.
Rothenberg said he’s still thinking of other ways to improve the tournament, such as expanding the field to 64 teams and doing away with the group stage, making the World Cup like the NCAA basketball tournament.
“I know I’m off the charts on this one,” he said. “Single elimination. It’s exciting start to finish.”
At 86, Rothenberg is still active, making regular trips to his office at 1st Century Bank, the community bank he founded in 2004 at an age when most people were entering retirement. And he promises to be a presence at this summer’s World Cup.
As for whether he gets the credit he deserves for making that tournament possible, Rothenberg demurs.
“I didn’t do it for credit,” he says, speaking about both the World Cup and the book that explains how it happened. “All I can say is I’m proud of what I did.”
You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the “Corner of the Galaxy” podcast.
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