SPECIAL REPORT / SOCCER IN AMERICA : TALL ORDER : Major League Soccer, Scheduled to Make Its Debut in 1995, Faces the Daunting Challenge of Surviving on the Competitive American Sports Landscape
Lee Stern can laugh about it now. He can find humor in a little enterprise he once undertook that had its ups and downs.
“Obviously, I never was interested in money,” Stern said. “Being in soccer prevented me from being one of the major owners of the Chicago Bulls.”
Stern, a successful Chicago commodities broker, once was a major force in American soccer. He owned the Chicago Sting of the now-defunct North American Soccer League.
He turned down a chance to be involved with the Bulls because by the time the offer was made “the Sting was losing more money than I could think about,” he said.
Stern, who also once was an investor in the Chicago White Sox, lost millions trying to sell soccer to America.
So did Texas oilman Lamar Hunt, who once owned the NASL’s Dallas Tornado.
If anyone in the United States has reason to resent even the mere mention of the word soccer, it is these gentlemen.
Yet, for one month this summer there was little doubt each was running a socccer fever.
They, like many other Americans, were swept up in a euphoric wave of excitement over World Cup ’94. Hunt had seen 10 games by the third weekend and Stern could not be lured away from the television screen.
But before anyone declares America a bona fide soccer-crazy nation, there is much to be done. The architects of the World Cup organizing committee face a daunting task, the development of a professional soccer league that becomes part of America.
That, after all, was the ultimate aim of their monthlong extravaganza.
They sold us soccer for a month. Now, can they sell it for a lifetime?
“It’s not like soccer comes into America today as a virgin sport, untouched and untried,” said Kyle Rote Jr., one of the biggest American names in the sport 20 years ago.
But if Lee Stern, Lamar Hunt and a host of other successful sports owners could not make it work, many wonder how it will be different this time.
“I think the party will be over in a couple weeks and soccer will be where it was,” said David Burns of Burns Sports Celebrity Service, a Chicago company that promotes athletes for commercials.
Even Leigh Steinberg, a sports agent from Newport Beach who represents a number of U.S. national team players, is not sure the sport will gain a foothold in America. And if it does not, the legacy of the World Cup will be nothing more than fond memories.
After the United States had upset Colombia in the first round, the sport’s future looked promising. The next day, calls came pouring in, Steinberg said. But when the team lost a few days later to Romania, “It hit with a dull thud.”
Such is the fickle nature of the American public. Obscure Olympic athletes such as speed skater Dan Jansen and skier Tommy Moe were darlings during the Winter Olympics in February but have all but disappeared since.
“We’re a trendy country,” Steinberg said. “We tend to focus on things that are hot. All of a sudden soccer is hot.”
But for how long?
The soccer community is unswayed by such pessimism. The World Cup captured the imagination of a nation, and those who have toiled in the soccer trenches for much of their lives believe their sport and time have come.
It might take five years to find out if they are right. Major League Soccer, which is scheduled to open in 12 cities next April, is hoping to lay a foundation to sustain the sport. The World Cup was the jump start, and optimism is oozing from the Century City offices MLS shared with the World Cup ’94 organizing committee.
Alan Rothenberg, head of World Cup USA ‘94, the U.S. Soccer Federation and MLS, is part of the reason many believe the new league has a better chance of succeeding than past efforts.
“Alan came up with this brilliant scheme that might be the only scheme that could work,” said Rote, a Memphis sports agent.
Unlike most sports enterprises, MLS has total ownership. Instead of a collection of individual owners, MLS will dictate rules and policy in what Rothenberg calls a single-entity league.
But when the World Cup started June 17, the proposed league had so many question marks that a healthy skepticism prevailed. For instance, the day before the Cup opener in Chicago, Rothenberg introduced seven cities as charter members of MLS, instead of the expected 12. Rothenberg said recently that five more cities would be named by Aug. 1, although others say it probably will happen sometime in the fall.
Furthermore, major sponsors and financing, the backbone of the single-entity league, have not been announced.
MLS insiders say the World Cup has piqued the interest of potential investors, but the fledgling league needs commitment now more than ever.
“This is a challenge that I think can succeed,” said Harley Frankel, MLS senior vice president, who worked as an NBA executive for eight years. “What a lot of people miss is, this is not an attempt to have instant success like the NBA or baseball is enjoying.”
Frankel, once a staff member in the Carter Administration, said the league’s plan to build slowly is solid, but the unexpected success of the World Cup has solidified its position.
“It has given potential investors more confidence,” he said. “It has given television more confidence that it will succeed. The World Cup has given us more muscle.”
Or as Roy Wegerle of the U.S. national team said, “If this doesn’t kick it in, nothing will.”
Yet, like most new endeavors, MLS faces many obstacles. There is a gulf of difference between interest and investment. The league has gained the attention of sponsors. MLS announced recently that Mitre will be the official game ball and Nike will provide uniforms for six teams. However, sponsors are not investors and until the money is raised, there will be no stadiums and no players.
The league hired a Wall Street investment banker to help raise $100 million, a move that can be seen as a sign either of strength or weakness. And those who invest must overcome the fears of MLS’ own five-year projections.
According to the MLS business plan, the league expects to lose $63.6 million from 1993 to 1997, almost $30 million in its first season. The losses are based on an average attendance of 12,500 a game.
By comparison, the Clippers, in their 10th season in Los Angeles, averaged 11,489 in 1993-94.
Perhaps the biggest challenge facing U.S. soccer is bringing its community together with a common purpose. Although that is Rothenberg’s aim, his stranglehold on the sport has caused ill will.
Rick Davis, coach and general manager of the Los Angeles Salsa of the American Professional Soccer League, has fired a loud salvo. His league is being told it will serve as a second division, or minor league, to the MLS.
“Why has the MLS been given preferred status when the APSL has been going for four years now?” asked Davis, a former player with the NASL’s Cosmos.
And there is yet another league trying to start, Chicago entrepreneur Jim Paglia’s League 1 America. But whereas the APSL and League 1 America covet the USSF’s designation of Division One status, only MLS has it.
Mostly, it has Rothenberg, who has gained respect from FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, because of the success of World Cup ’94. Rothenberg said that FIFA President Joao Havelange of Brazil told him that the World Cup had been the best in the sport’s history. When it comes to the MLS and the sport’s future, Davis thinks an opportunity has been lost. “I am disappointed and frustrated that the MLS isn’t going to play a game for nearly a year after the World Cup,” Davis said. “The league should have been ready to capitalize on new spectator interest here as soon as the World Cup ended. They knew in 1988 that the World Cup was coming here, so they had six years to organize and get the pro league going.”
Said the U.S. national team’s John Harkes: “If people who are up there in top places are doing it for the game and not for making a buck, it will succeed. If they’re doing it to make a quick buck, it’ll be out of there in a heartbeat. That’s the way it’s always been for soccer.”
If MLS sticks to its modest goals in the beginning, it has a chance to gain acceptance. Hunt, 62, said he would love to join the fun, but is too old to start another adventure. But having been around football much of his life, he notes that sports go through cycles in America.
“Nothing stays the same,” he said, adding that soccer might catch on this time.
To do so, it must compete with a broad menu of sports options, from baseball to football to basketball to hockey to college sports.
“We’re not a culture where one sport dominates,” Rote said. “You can’t go from no passion and no knowledge in one step.”
But the World Cup has at least changed perceptions. The international flavor of the matches in the nine host cities was a wonderful experience for many Americans. Without the electrifying scene of World Cup competition, soccer could lose its dynamics, said Burns, the Chicago agent.
“Atmosphere isn’t a bunch of little kids running around in shorts for momma and papa to watch them,” he said. “That’s the mistake soccer is making.”
Stern, on the other hand, believes soccer has been making it here all along because of the number of youngsters playing--as many as 16.4 million by some estimates.
“This sport is here to stay,” he said. “It’s just too much fun for kids to play.”
Does that translate into a successful pro league?
It has not in the past.
But after the World Cup? It might.
Staff writers Julie Cart and Mike Penner contributed to this story.
The Big Picture
MLS CHRONOLOGY
* DEC. 5, 1993: The U.S. Soccer Federation designates Major League Soccer as lone U.S. Division I league.
* DEC. 17, 1993: The USSF and MLS present the business plan for the league to the FIFA Executive Committee.
* JAN. 22-23: MLS holds a conference for the 29 communities bidding for franchises in the proposed 12-team league.
* MARCH 15: The league announces television contracts with ESPN, to televise regular-season games, and ABC, to televise the title game.
* JUNE 15: Seven of the 12 franchises have been awarded, with teams to be placed in Los Angeles, Boston, Columbus, Ohio; New Jersey, New York, San Jose and Washington, D.C.
FACETS OF THE MLS
* A single-entity structure, with all franchises and player contracts owned by the league.
* Local management for all teams, with the ability to make trades, and bonuses awarded for success on the field.
* A talent pool created by the league, from which team rosters will be filled from a draft.
* An emphasis on U.S. players, with a limit of three or four foreign players a team.
* A commitment to creating a more entertaining game by experimenting with rule changes.
