One-on-one: Joe Roth

Thursday, March 13, 2008 | 6:48 p.m. | By Patrick Kinmartin | Comments | Print

American business moguls Malcolm Glazer, Randy Lerner, Tom Hicks and George Gillett have made waves in the international soccer realm in the last few years by purchasing three of the most well-established teams in the English Premier League.

With a little more financial clout, prominent Hollywood entertainment executive Joe Roth could put himself among that group. Even then, the soccer-mad filmmaker might pass on the opportunity.

Hollywood Entertainment Executive Joe Roth (right)

Roth, after all, describes himself as being more than simply the majority owner of Major League Soccer's new Seattle franchise. Addressing a lunchtime audience at the World Congress of Sports on Thursday afternoon in Dana Point, Calif., he made it clear that his 
intent is to put the state of Washington and, eventually, the United States on the sport's world map.

"All the ideas in the world that I have might not make it run," he said while going over the issue of soccer's stagnant growth in the U.S. "But maybe it will start walking a little faster."

That's nothing more than an age-old battle cry, American soccer critics often say. The sport has failed to catch on in a big way despite the fact that the U.S. national team has experienced moderate success in world tournaments. Some of its players have breached 
Europe's top leagues and it's Glazer — a Florida-based CEO born in New York — who owns Manchester United, perhaps the world's most well-known team.

Asked Thursday about general doubts nationwide that soccer will ever be as prominent as it has become virtually everywhere else, Roth dug in.

"It makes me angry because it makes us look stupid," he said. "It's not possible we as a country are so different than everybody else. It just hasn't been tapped into the right way."

That's where Roth believes that he and what he thinks are some clever business ideas of his come in. He revealed some of the plans for the new Seattle franchise, which will begin MLS play next year and call Qwest Field its home stadium, to attendees at the World Congress luncheon.

"We're going to put up a seating grid online that will be similar to what you see on Facebook," Roth said. "You'll be able to click around the stadium and see what groups you're sitting around. You'll be able to connect with other fans that much easier, so we're going to build an involved fan base.

"What we'd really like to do is pack the lower bowl at Qwest Field so that we'll have 20,000 people in close together. We'll put a tarp on the upper levels, not just to have there, but to advertise and have for live entertainment. We'll have music and visuals up there."

But the key, Roth knows, will be putting talent — and victories — on display for the home fans. That, in itself, has been a difficult challenge for other MLS owners, who have struggled to attract mainstream sports aficionados cognizant that soccer's top talent mostly plays abroad.

Instead of flocking to mine soccer overseas the way Glazer, Lerner, Hicks and Gillett have in England, Roth wants to raise the level of the sport in the United States, citing New York Red Bulls star Jozy Altidore as a prime example.

"I'd rather have five Jozy Altidores than five David Beckhams," Roth said. "In Altidore, we've got a dynamic player who isn't even 20. He's the one the 15-year-olds can identify with, the type that can bridge the disconnect between the countless 5-year-olds playing out there and older teenagers who lost interest."

Consider it another reason Roth has no desire to take his soccer interest outside the country.

"I'm a curious person,” he said. “I like to solve problems. The disconnect in soccer between kids 5 and 15 is a problem."