The Cosmos began as a rag-tag team, started on a whim by one of the most powerful men in entertainment. Steve Ross, the founder of Warner Communications, had never even seen a soccer game before he helped finance a team. Within five years, Ross had convinced the greatest player in the history of the sport to leave his beloved Brazil for the nascent Cosmos (and become a soccer missionary in the USA). Under Ross and Warner Communications, Pelé became the richest professional athlete on the planet, and the Cosmos became the most celebrated club of superstars ever assembled. In the summer of 1977, with a serial killer on the loose and Manhattan descending into lawlessness and chaos, the Cosmos became the toast of Studio 54 and the darlings of millions of Americans; winning championships, touring the globe and igniting a soccer revolution in the land of basketball, baseball and the almighty gridiron.
