In July 2023, Argentinian legend Lionel Messi announced his move from Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) to Inter Miami, in what has been seen as a major coup for the North American soccer league. The arrival of Messi has had an immediate impact on the league’s global popularity and commercial interest, with his new team, Inter Miami, set to reap the greatest benefits from his direct affiliation. The team has already announced increased ticket prices and major new commercial deals for its front-of-shirt, sleeve, and stadium naming rights, all of which offer a combined $79.1 million year-on-year increase in these areas alone, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

Capturing the signature of the greatest player of all time has not come cheap to either his new team or the league itself. His base rate of annual pay of $20.4 million is the highest in league history, but this figure is expected to only represent around a third of what he could bank each year. The real value to Messi in his Major League Soccer contract stems from the contract add-on’s, which include percentage shares in league-wide deals, including that of its broadcasting agreement with Apple TV and kit deal with adidas.

GlobalData’s latest report, “The Business of Major League Soccer 2024,” explores all the major deals linked to Inter Miami and Major League Soccer this season, as it looks to recoup some of its high expenditure on signing Messi. This includes the jump in ticket prices of games, as Inter Miami doubles the price of its cheapest season ticket from $485 in 2023 to $884 in 2024. Despite the team attracting the third fewest number of total fans across the 2023 season, the team is set to be the big earners in ticket sales this season, banking an additional estimated $64.85 million in 2024.

Jake Kemp, Sport Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Other major areas where we can see the direct benefits of Messi’s arrival come from team sponsorship. Inter Miami has announced three new partners in its three biggest sponsorship sales since his arrival. This includes Royal Caribbean Cruises, the Fracht Group, and Chase Bank coming in for the front-of-shirt, sleeve, and stadium naming rights, respectively. These deals alone are estimated to boost the team’s annual revenue by over $14.25 million this season.”

Kemp continues: “As a means of evidencing and highlighting the impact Messi has and could yet have on the league, we only have to look at the impact of social media in the time since his arrival. He alone boasts an Instagram following of 499.3 million fans, compared to just 4.34 million for Major League Soccer. Year-on-year analysis shows that Inter Miami’s following has increased by 1,359.51% since the start of the 2023 season, going from the sixth most followed team to the single most popular. Its new position atop the online popularity rankings is not even close when you consider its Instagram following of 22.71 million compared to LA Galaxy (the second most popular team) at 4.66 million.”

The league itself has and will continue to look to exploit the time remaining on Messi’s contract in the US. At the end of the 2023 season, Apple TV released a short docuseries entitled ‘Messi meets America’, understanding the need to maximize fresh content to attract fans. The league has started construction on a reported $50 million ‘Messi experience’ in Miami, which will offer fans the chance to visit a multimedia tour showing the soccer player’s life and career to date.

Kemp concludes: “Major League Soccer is no stranger to attracting some of the biggest names in soccer, but the arrival of Messi is on a scale unlike any other previous arrival. David Beckham’s arrival in Los Angeles in 2007 was a monumental moment that changed the perceptions of soccer in the US, but the arrival of Messi is still different. The team has signed a player who will be considered the greatest of all time and arrives in a year in which he won the 2023 Ballon d’Or.

“Messi’s arrival offers Inter Miami and the rest of the league a huge opportunity to attract new fans and enter new lucrative markets. The opportunity will not be wasted by the league, as proven by the amount of Messi-related content that has already been produced and is something we can expect to see more and more of until the end of his contract in December 2025.”