Rothenberg Likes What He Sees

One of the earliest fans of the U.S. women’s national team was Alan Rothenberg, former president of U.S. Soccer and the man who headed World Cup ’94.

Rothenberg also is a former owner of the long-defunct Los Angeles Aztecs, and that connection allowed him to make a unique comparison between the way the U.S. women play the game and the way other teams approach it.

“The woman play an awfully pure brand of soccer, very entertaining,” he said. “They haven’t gotten cynical yet out on the field. Watching the U.S. team move the ball around and just interchange positions, it’s kind of like watching Rinus Michels’ old Dutch teams. It’s great.”

Michels is the coach who revolutionized Dutch soccer in the 1970s, developing “total football”--earning the team the nickname “Clockwork Orange”--and, with the help of players such as forward Johan Cruyff, making the Netherlands a world power.

Rothenberg later lured Michels to the U.S. west to coach the Aztecs and Cruyff to play for them.

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Could the sellout crowd of 78,972 that flocked to Giants Stadium for the Women’s World Cup opening doubleheader be one of the catalysts for formation of a women’s professional soccer league in the United States?

Probably, but there will have to be other similar-sized crowds before skeptics are convinced, and even then much more groundwork will have to be done.

“I know that the thought is that with the Women’s World Cup and next year’s Sydney Olympics, when women’s soccer will get a lot of attention, that possibly in 2001 there could be a league,” said Marla Messing, president and CEO of the tournament.

“To the players, I think the key is that they can make enough money to play soccer full time and that they can play and maintain their dominance.”

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The attendance Saturday at Giants Stadium may have set a record for women’s sports, but the TV rating wasn’t so impressive.

The overnight rating for the game on ABC was a 2.2 with a 6 share. The third round of the U.S. Open golf, meanwhile, drew a 5.3 with a 15 share.

The first two U.S. matches in the men’s World Cup last year drew overnight ratings of 4.3 and 4.8, and when the men’s World Cup was in the U.S. in 1994, the overnight rating for the first U.S. match was a 5.8.

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Rothenberg, who headed the 1994 World Cup in the U.S. that attracted more than 3.5 million fans, is not surprised that Women’s World Cup ’99 is drawing well. It has already has surpassed the 1995 tournament in attendance after only four doubleheaders.

“I think we did a phenomenal grass-roots marketing job,” he said. “Perennially, everybody complains that the soccer family is a great group of participants but they don’t rally behind MLS [Major League Soccer] or the [men’s] national team.”

Rothenberg told the New York Times: “If the U.S. is in the [July 10] final, we think we can sell out the Rose Bowl. If they don’t [make it that far], there will be fewer people because some of us will have slit our throats.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.