The opening ceremony for the 1994 World Cup took place at Chicago’s Soldier Field.
“‘The United States was chosen,’ the columnist George Vecsey wrote in the New York Times in 1994, ‘because of all the money to be made here, not because of any soccer prowess. Our country has been rented as a giant stadium and hotel and television studio.’ Nobody could seriously doubt that. The USA had played in only two World Cups since the second world war and hadn’t had a national professional league for a decade. And that meant there was a great deal of skepticism from outsiders, even after Fifa made it clear there would be no wacky law changes to try to appeal to the domestic audience: Would anybody actually turn up to watch. But there was also hostility in the United States. … ‘Hating soccer,’ wrote the columnist Tom Weir, ‘is more American than mom’s apple pie, driving a pickup or spending Saturday afternoon channel surfing with the remote control.’ …”
Guardian