"Peter assumed with that background I must know a lot about soccer," Rothenberg writes. Certainly we wouldn't have been able to start Major League Soccer at that time if the World Cup wasn't successful." "You can argue that the '94 World Cup was really the linchpin to that entire explosion in the sport." The World Cup hasn't been the same since, with FIFA's revenue growing to a projected $13 billion for the 2026 cycle. "I didn't do it for credit," he says, speaking about both the World Cup and the book that explains how it happened.

Source: Los Angeles Times January 14, 2026 23:03 UTC