"I reported to the league office and was on a set budget," Manning said. "We were playing in a football stadium, and it just wasn't working for whatever reasons. I don't think any team can survive in a football stadium. It was kind of like what was going on here until they got the stadium deal done. Eventually, the team was folded and all of us involved with it dispersed."

It turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Manning. He landed on his feet as he took a job with the Houston Rockets as their director of corporate sponsorships. It was just prior to the Rockets moving into a new arena. After having great success in generating new sponsorship money for Houston, he moved to the NFL, where he was vice president of sales and service for the Philadelphia Eagles.

During his tenure, the Eagles saw a 50 percent increase in corporate sponsorship from the 2004 to 2007 seasons, and in August 2007, Forbes magazine cited the Eagles as the fastest-growing brand in the NFL using a brand value formula that included sponsorships and ticket sales. In June 2006, Manning was selected to represent the Eagles at the prestigious NFL Program for Managers at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

With a pedigree like that, it was easy to see why the brass at RSL wanted him.

"The organization really struggled the first few years for a number of reasons," owner Dave Checketts said. "We didn't know if we were going to be able to stay here. It was hard to recruit the type of talent that we needed to become a world-class organization until we were sure that we were building a stadium.

"Once the stadium got under way, I did a world-wide search, literally, for the right president," Checketts added. "We needed someone that first, had a passion for the sport, and then had a knowledge of the business. We had a list of about 40 and interviewed about 12. The first time I met him I thought, 'This is the guy for us.'

"He's a leader. He's been through the business side of it. He was with the Philadelphia Eagles when they opened the new stadium, so he knows exactly what needs to go on with that."

Besides having the know-how in building corporate sponsorships, Manning has also done a lot of public relations damage-control. It isn't any secret that the new stadium caused quite a stir in both the political and business communities. Even today, it is still a sensitive subject.

"The best thing he has done is he is building bridges for us in the community," Checketts said. "Just in getting the stadium done, we blew up a lot of bridges. We created a lot of turmoil. I call it ripped blankets, whatever you want to call it. We had relationships that needed to be rebuilt. He's brought a friendship perspective, and people have opened the door and been receptive to him."