COLUMBUS, Ohio — Sixteen years ago, a man named Jim Smith sketched out the first plan.

It was November 2000. On a blank piece of paper he found at home, Smith — then the general manager of the Columbus Crew of M.L.S. — began to play around with a concept.

The schedule for the final round of 2002 World Cup qualifying had just been released. As a bit of a thought exercise, Smith scribbled and scratched, did some adding and multiplying, and ultimately determined that, if sales were conducted just so — 5,625 tickets to Crew season-ticket holders, 6,800 tickets to in-state youth associations, 4,200 to U.S. Soccer and its supporters’ club, and so on — the club might be able to sell out Crew Stadium for a match between the United States and Mexico in the dead of winter. Then Smith called the Crew’s owner, Lamar Hunt.

“I remember that I told him, ‘We need to host this U.S.-Mexico game in February,’” Smith said recently, “and he sort of paused and then said, ‘Are you crazy?’”

Smith laughed. “I said: ‘It’s perfect. We can sell it out, and I’ll tell you how.’ And then he listened and supported it 100 percent. And then we went out and did it.”