World Cup and world-class binge drinking: Host city memories of 1994 | Opinion
The World Cup is a little over a week away and a mere three-hour drive from here in Wichita.
Are you starting to get excited?
Funny, me neither.
The last time I was around World Cup hope and hype was 1994, the last time the United States served as host country. It was OK, as these things go, but it wasn’t the generational experience it was billed to be.
I was a reporter for the Pasadena Star-News, host city for the World Cup championship game between Brazil and Italy.
The Star-News was the primary newspaper in the host city and as such, hosted the party for the international press that had traveled to Pasadena for the championship game.
We laid in what we thought would be a more-than-adequate supply of beer, wine and liquor of various types. We didn’t know how wrong we were.
The Cold War had ended 2 1/2 years earlier, but our newfound drinking buddies, particularly those from countries that had been behind the Iron Curtain, knocked back the booze like it was quarter till nuclear Armageddon.
My dominant memory of that World Cup will always be that night I spent driving back and forth to the liquor store to resupply the troops.
Promises versus reality
Like Kansas City, we were promised the world would beat a path to our door, bringing riches beyond our wildest dreams.
The actuality was a bit anticlimactic.
I didn’t go to the game. Colleagues who did told me it was kind of snoozer, because both teams seemed to be playing not to lose, and nobody scored until Brazil prevailed on tie-breaking penalty kicks.
Yes, the Rose Bowl was full. But that really wasn’t too unusual.
The general buzz in the city wasn’t close to the Rose Parade and Game, which we hosted every year, or the Super Bowl, which Pasadena hosted five times, including the year before the World Cup came to town.
Other than my drunken reporter friends, the only indication I recall that something out of the ordinary was happening in Pasadena was that there were a few more people cruising Colorado Boulevard than usual.
Some of them had Brazilian flags flying out the windows of their rental cars. We smiled and waved on our way to lunch.
I don’t recall seeing any Italian flags. I guess street cruising wasn’t their thing, or maybe they did it someplace else.
Parting advice
To our advantage, we weren’t facing the headwinds that Kansas City’s World Cup turn faces today.
In southern California, soccer was only truly popular in immigrant communities, primarily Latin American ones. But the good news was there were a lot of them, and they showed up.
Also, we actually liked foreigners and tourists, and didn’t make them jump through hoops to come visit, like we do in today’s paranoid immigration climate.
Multiple stories have hit the news recently that foreign travelers have been balking at travel restrictions and airfare inflation, egregiously high game ticket prices and hotels trying to charge two or three times their regular rates.
Thousands of rooms originally reserved by FIFA have been released back to the general marketplace, a clear sign that things are not exactly running to plan.
On top of that, the American Hotel and Lodging Association recently published a report that bookings are lagging expectations in all U.S. host cities. Kansas City is the worst-performing, with almost 90% of hoteliers reporting bookings below forecast.
From my experience, I’ll offer this advice to my friends three hours up the I-35:
Unless you’re really into soccer, this probably isn’t going to be life- or economy-changing. You might want to tailor your expectations downward from FIFA and tourism bureau projections.
You’re going to have six matches at Arrowhead Stadium (although due to FIFA marketing rules, it’s “Kansas City Stadium” for the duration of the World Cup). The games will very probably all sell out, like every Chiefs game of the past few years.
So if you look at it like getting an extra six Chiefs games this year, you probably won’t be disappointed, and maybe even pleasantly surprised.
Oh, and, if you happen to run into a group of foreign soccer correspondents, do not offer to pick up the tab for a night of drinking.
Even if you can afford World Cup tickets, you probably can’t afford that.
This story was originally published June 4, 2026 at 4:47 AM with the headline "World Cup and world-class binge drinking: Host city memories of 1994 | Opinion."
