Steve Ross

The chairman of the company that owned the New York Cosmos. Ross was one of 10 Kinney National executives who founded the Cosmos in 1970 and in 1971 sold the team to Kinney (which was renamed Warner Communications in 1972). Ross was chairman of the board of Warner, and while he did not own the team himself, he dominated it and gave the green light in 1974 for the effort to sign Pele, which led to the signings of other stars like Franz Beckenbauer and Giorgio Chinaglia. Inducted in 2003.