World Cup 2002 - Notes from a ‘Barren Land': America, 1994

R. Sanborn Brown

With the possibility of fabulous lucre dancing before its eyes, FIFA awarded the 1994 World Cup to the United States, the final frontier in the world soccer market. This was to be the first time in the sixty-four year history of the tournament that it would be held outside of Europe or Latin America, reports the "Tales from the World Cup" series that appears in the Asahi Shinbun. Many had scoffed at allowing such a second-rate football nation play host to the game's most prestigious event and also at the automatic bid the US team—a group of mainly former college stars—would thereby receive. The great financial success of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic games no doubt played a large role in swaying any naysayers.

Using existing American football stadiums, the American World Cup set a record with average attendance at matches reaching 68,000. Revenue forecasts prior to the tournament hovered in the $20 million range; actual revenues were $50 million.

Alan Rothenberger, a lawyer by training who had no previous experience with soccer, headed the US Organizing Committee. "We are in a time in which sports and big business have to be linked," he unabashedly asserted. The ‘94 Cup further pushed soccer down the path of big business. It received no government subsidies and was run completely privately. This was made possible in main by television broadcasting rights. As a result, roughly half of the matches were scheduled to be played from 12 noon to two in the afternoon—peak viewing time in Europe—and as a result players gasped in the brutal midday heat.

The Final began at 12:30 p.m. on July 17. By the second half, players from both teams were wilting under the sun; for the first time in World Cup history the Final was a scoreless draw and would have to be settled by penalties. Brazil clinched a record 4th World Cup when Italy's Roberto Baggio—exhausted and limping from an injury to his hamstring—missed from the penalty spot. Soccer journalist Chris Freddi noted: "But once again FIFA had sacrificed the tournament to the demands of television, forcing players to play in extreme heat and high humidity. The conditions made recovery all the harder (both semi-finals were won by the teams who had a day's extra rest) and wrecked the Final as a contest and spectacle." Mexican coach Miguel Mejia Baron concurred, "I would tell those gentlemen of FIFA to take their off suits and play football…if FIFA were to think about the player, if it were to think more about football and less about business, there would be night games." The US Organizing Committee's final report stated, "We trust that the success of the tournament will not be judged on the basis of the Final alone but rather on all fifty-two matches."

Two years later, Rothenberger went on to found Major League Soccer (MLS), America's second stab at a professional league. At the time of its founding, the organizers proposed some "special rules," all of which deviated from traditional soccer: making the goal area bigger to ensure higher scoring games; having the clock count down instead of up, as in basketball; letting the player dribble—shoot-out style—in penalty kicks; etc. The logic that underlay these proposals was that the reason soccer, unlike baseball and American football, wasn't popular in the United States was because its rules were "too removed from what Americans like." The increasing of the size of the goal idea was shelved, but the MLS went ahead and kicked off with its own rules.

And was a failure.

In 2000, with low attendance, the league revised its rules to be compliance with international standards: the shootout was eliminated, the clock started counting up, and overtime and ties made their debut. Following the change, though, attendance still has not improved. "What we are hoping for from the US team in the World Cup is not just about wins and loses," said MLS Commissioner Dan Garber, a former official in the National Football League (NFL). "Instead, we want the team to get the American public excited about soccer."

Last October 7th, in the match against Jamaica that qualified the US team for the Korea/Japan 2002 World Cup, not one major network aired the game live. An American football game and the US military campaign in Afghanistan dominated the airwaves.

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