When Lionel Messi signed to affix MLS, his contract reportedly included a stipulation to obtain a share of the revenues generated by streaming associate Apple TV.
Since Might, Messi’s relationship with MLS has additionally included a sponsorship settlement that made his new sports activities drink, Mas+ by Messi, the league’s official hydration associate.
And now MLS seems set to permit Miami so as to add to its traditionally stacked roster by signing yet one more shut Messi pal, Rodrigo De Paul—skirting league spending guidelines by structuring the deal as a mortgage from Atlético Madrid with a purchase order choice.
In any case that, we’re nonetheless ready on Messi to signal a much-anticipated contract extension to stay in Miami past 2025. And people with questions on that gained’t be capable of ask him anytime quickly, since he gained’t be among the many 12 MLS gamers obtainable to reporters at Monday’s media day on the 2025 MLS All-Star Sport.
Perhaps that’s not the worst information on this planet for journalists who care about telling fascinating tales. Messi’s soccer abilities are extraordinary, however he’s almost as proficient within the long-revered athlete pastime of giving numbingly boring interviews.
However for many who hoped Messi’s relationship with MLS would really be transformational, it’s simply one other twist of the knife: a actuality examine that the pact between the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner and the 30-year-old league is awfully one-sided.
Perhaps it’s comprehensible to attempt to hold the most important star who has ever performed in your competitors completely satisfied. It’s additionally comprehensible to begin asking how—and when—that’s going to result in actual adjustments.
Messi was presupposed to be a windfall second, one that will make MLS a extra engaging vacation spot for extra, youthful stars.
There’s little signal of that materializing on the league’s 29 different golf equipment.
Kevin De Bruyne and Antoine Griezmann reportedly turned down stateside affords regardless of appreciable curiosity. Olivier Giroud and LAFC opted to terminate his contract by mutual consent, permitting France’s all-time main scorer to return residence after a yr of scoring struggles. Cristiano Ronaldo took extra Saudi cash in any case, regardless of a quick window when an MLS transfer appeared believable.
Messi was additionally presupposed to be a car to move extra informal followers to MLS stadiums and screens.
On the field workplace, the preliminary Messi hype helped MLS to a report regular-season common attendance of 23,234 in 2024. However to this point, 2025 is shaping up like a regression to the imply.
Within the TV and streaming world, Messi’s arrival clearly sparked an preliminary surge in MLS Season Cross subscriptions on Apple TV. However the longer-term influence is tougher to quantify, with Apple persevering with to supply little in the way in which of tangible viewership information.
And whether or not real looking or not, Messi got here to America with the expectation that he can be for MLS what Pelé was for the NASL a technology in the past.
Those that had adopted the Argentine even remotely knew that was a false hope.
Messi has at all times been a soft-spoken, introverted determine—somebody who accepts fame for the riches it affords himself and his interior circle, however not often embraces it. Even within the managed surroundings of an advert shoot, the completed product not often sees him saying greater than, “No, Michelob Extremely,” or “Bien asistencia.”
However that expectation nonetheless existed. And MLS was completely satisfied to hype it—both in naïve hope that Messi would ship one thing near Pelé’s relentless ambassadorial work for the New York Cosmos, or within the extra cynical perception that followers wouldn’t care when he didn’t.
Messi may be enjoying in MLS. However he has hardly assimilated into it. If something, his existence at Inter Miami feels extra like a household enclave carved out from the remainder of the league with every passing week.
From the reconstruction of a roster now heavy on Argentine and different South American expertise, to the appointment of a head coach and sporting director whose most blatant {qualifications} are longstanding ties to the staff’s most well-known participant, to the continued refusal to work together with all however just a few handpicked media members—the consolation of the world’s No. 10 has come above each different concern.
It’s effectively inside Messi and Miami’s prerogative. It could even show a successful system on the sphere.
But it surely’s arduous to see the way it results in the massive change MLS was banking on.
