Alan Rothenberg has a story he needs to let you know. Rather a lot of tales really; enough to fill a guide.

So he wrote one.

But that’s not the first memorable work he’s authored. As the person behind the 1984 L.A. Olympics soccer event and the 1994 World Cup, still the most profitable in historical past, Rothenberg has arguably had more to do with writing the story of U.S. Soccer in the fashionable period than anybody.

And you’ll be able to draw a straight line from that chapter to the one that can be written this summer time 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 on the market Feb. 10. In fact, the guide begins there.

But Rothenberg’s profession didn’t. Before altering the face of U.S. Soccer, he first altered the panorama of sports activities in his adopted hometown, taking part in instrumental roles in bringing the Clippers to Los Angeles, in negotiating the commerce that made Kareem Abdul-Jabbar a Laker and in settling the Kings at the Forum.

As a lawyer who began his profession 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 concerned in some of the most consequential occasions in 4 sports activities during a profession 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 game 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 data he more than made up for in creativity and group expertise, however, and the Olympic event proved to be one of the most profitable in historical past, with the ultimate at the Rose Bowl drawing a crowd of 104,098, a U.S. document for a soccer sport that stood for 30 years.

But his identify will without end be synonymous with the World Cup.

The 1994 event was the first to be performed in a nation without a first-division league and there have been widespread fears it will be a catastrophe. Instead, it drew an average of 69,174 followers to each of the 52 video games, an attendance document that still stands. It also generated a surplus of more than $50 million — also a document — money that went to the U.S. Soccer Foundation to promote the growth of the game 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 not often mentioned — but massively important — legacy of that event is the inspiration it created in phrases of expertise and experience. The U.S. had never staged a major standalone soccer competitors before 1994 and the training curve was steep. Among those who labored under Rothenberg and went on to great success in the game have been Sunil Gulati, a three-term president of U.S. Soccer; Nelson Rodriguez, now MLS govt 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 previous govt vice-president of Soccer United Marketing and chief govt officer of U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Properties; and Charlie Stillitano, a former MLS normal supervisor who pioneered the concept of inviting major European golf equipment to play summer time 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 working officer had duty for day-to-day operations of the World Cup organizing committee for 1994. “All the people who labored on our committee, who had some position that now are normal managers of MLS groups. The league itself that got here out of it. The quantity of soccer services. We didn’t have a single soccer specific-stadium in the nation.

“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 income growing to a projected $13 billion for the 2026 cycle. There are more than 40 nations that don’t have an economic system that large.

As Rothenberg notes in his guide, FIFA initially pushed back on many of the innovations he proposed, including a halftime show at the ultimate, only to finally undertake the concepts as their own. Rothenberg also needed to charge $1,000 a ticket for the ultimate in 1994, arguing that followers would pay that on the secondary market, so why let the scalpers make the revenue?

“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 most cost effective common tickets for the ultimate of this summer time’s event start at $2,000.

Rothenberg said he’s still pondering of other methods to improve the event, such as increasing the sphere to 64 groups and doing away with the group stage, making the World Cup just like the NCAA basketball event.

“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 energetic, making common journeys to his workplace at 1st Century Bank, the neighborhood bank he based in 2004 at an age when most people have been getting into retirement. And he guarantees to be a presence at this summer time’s World Cup.

As for whether or not he will get the credit he deserves for making that event doable, Rothenberg demurs.

“I didn’t do it for credit,” he says, talking about both the World Cup and the guide that explains how it occurred. “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 highlight on distinctive tales. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the “Corner of the Galaxy” podcast.