Remembering the 1994 World Cup, when tickets cost US$25

[LOS ANGELES] Top tickets to the 1994 World Cup finals in the US sold for US$475, with other tickets to the tournament going for as low as US$25. This year, finals tickets at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey are selling for more than US$10,000. 

It was far cheaper for a reason. Over 30 years ago, the prospects for the tournament were far from certain. The US, accustomed to superpower status in all things, was at best an also-ran in men’s national football. It didn’t even have a proper domestic league.

The old North American Soccer League had folded after the 1984 season, and Major League Soccer (MLS) did not begin play until two years after the World Cup.

“We weren’t sure how successful it would be, but we knew Americans love a big event,” said Alan Rothenberg, chairman and CEO of the 1994 tournament, who was also president of US Soccer at the time and oversaw the football matches for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Rothenberg – an attorney who has also represented teams such as the LA Lakers, LA Clippers and Portland Trail Blazers, as well as athletes Bruce (now Caitlyn) Jenner and Greg Louganis – took advantage of his LA entertainment connections. 

Whitney Houston, the Three Tenors, Robin Williams and other stars were drafted in to help draw crowds to stadiums. “We brought in every celebrity you could think of,” he said.

But the suspicion that the US wasn’t really a football nation was compounded at the opening ceremony, after Diana Ross danced the length of the pitch to take a penalty kick and yanked the ball far left of the goal, which was unfortunately rigged to split apart to simulate a wonder strike.

This year, Fifa and the organisers have decided to copy the Super Bowl, America’s premier sporting occasion. For the first time, the final will feature a polished, half-time show featuring Madonna, Shakira and South Korean boy band BTS.

“Hearts in their mouth”

Despite the early doubts, the 1994 tournament began to pick up steam. Sponsors included a mix of enduring brands – Gillette, McDonald’s and Adidas – and some that have vanished, such as Pontiac.

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Because play in football is rarely interrupted, unlike American football, US television broadcasters had to figure out creative ways to slip ads into games. ABC and ESPN turned the new on-screen score-and-clock box into advertising space, rotating brands including Snickers and Coca-Cola. 

American fans, who’d been turned off by low scores, also learned to appreciate the game’s flow.

“One great play, one awful play – it could be night or day,” Rothenberg said. “The fans got their hearts in their mouth from the opening kick right to the end.”

Football was so new to the US in 1994 that it was dubbed the sport’s “final frontier”. Magazine ads to promote the games showed a cowboy lassoing a football. Another, with the caption “In 1994, Football Season Starts On Jun 17”, was illustrated with a photo of a man holding a football in the pose of American college football’s Heisman Trophy.

“I was handed a budget for an awareness campaign, like a new product launch,” said John Kristick, a sports consultant who oversaw promotion for the tournament. “It’s fundamentally different now. We are a soccer nation.”

The 1994 US team’s strong showing was an unexpected bonus. They made it to the round of 16, beating powerhouse Colombia 2-1. Colombia’s Andres Escobar, who scored an own goal, was assassinated days later upon returning home. 

Then, the US faced Brazil on Jul 4, Independence Day. The home crowd streaming into the stadium in Palo Alto, California, was as fired up as any in the world, Rothenberg recalled. 

The US put up a fight in the first half but lost 1-0. Brazil went on to beat Italy 3-2 in a penalty shoot-out in the final at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.

The tournament turned a profit of US$40 million – about US$88 million today. Overall, attendance averaged 68,991 per match, and filled stadiums to about 96 per cent capacity, making it one of the most successful World Cups.

On the edge of their seats

Today, much like in 1994, doubts are rampant about whether the World Cup will be a success.

Many potential foreign visitors, wary of a hostile reception and high costs in the US, are staying away. And while organisers worried in 1994 about empty seats because of a lack of American fans, this year fans complain that high ticket costs are making the games affordable only for the ultra-wealthy.

Los Angeles will host eight matches for the World Cup, including the US team opening match against Paraguay on Friday (Jun 12). 

“Unfortunately,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said, “this is the games for the elite of the world.”

Prices have been set high to prevent resellers from capitalising on the market, Fifa president Gianni Infantino said.

Distribution of this year’s 6.7 million tickets for 104 matches in 16 cities in the US, Canada and Mexico is electronic. In 1994, organisers printed more than 3.5 million pieces of paper for 52 games in nine US cities that were delivered by mail or other physical means from a centre in Los Angeles.

“We took over a bank vault,” Marla Messing, who managed ticket distribution then, said. 

Messing later headed the 1999 US-hosted Fifa Women’s World Cup, which the US won on penalties at a Rose Bowl final, a victory immortalised in the photo of Brandi Chastain celebrating by ripping off her jersey.

“There’s always a lot of agita leading up to these big events, but once players take to the field, everything that went before it goes away and it’s just one of the greatest sporting events of all time,” Messing said.

Tad off the goal

The 1994 cup became a building block for the establishment of MLS, which now has 30 teams in the US and Canada with purpose-built stadiums and a broadcast deal worth US$250 million a year with Apple TV.

Still, the US has not lived up to everyone’s expectations.

“The United States of America is the No 1 country in the world,” Fifa’s Infantino said during a May visit to Beverly Hills. “I do not understand how you can be satisfied to be No 20 in the No 1 sport in the world.” 

The US lost in friendlies to Belgium and Portugal in March in Atlanta, but a victory over Senegal and a narrow loss to Germany has helped boost excitement. The odds of the US qualifying beyond the first round are currently about 83 per cent, according to prediction market Kalshi.

Other professional sports leagues have grown faster. Sportico found that the value increases of franchises in the Women’s National Basketball Association and National Women’s Soccer League are outpacing MLS teams.

And, in another worrisome sign, US youth participation in football fell in the last decade while individual sports such as golf and tennis gained, Aspen Institute research showed. Veterans of 1994 expected a different trajectory after all this time.

“If you had asked me and with all that hair back in 1994 what it would look like going into the summer of 2026, 32 years later, I’ll be honest with you, I would have thought we would be much further along, said Alexi Lalas, a defender on the 1994 US team.

“I would have thought the conversation would be: Are we winning the World Cup? And that’s certainly not the conversation.” BLOOMBERG