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American Major League Soccer (MLS) has long struggled to sustain an engaged and spirited fan base like its sister leagues in South America, Europe, and other regions of the world where soccer has a stronger foothold — no pun intended.
It is no secret that soccer as a whole has never been fully integrated into mainstream sports culture in the United States. As a kid, this was always confusing, having grown up in a household with strict instructions to refer to soccer as the real “football,” taught that I should sell my soul to Liverpool, and normalized blocking out several months of one's life to dedicate to the world cup every four years.
Aside from George Washington, Albert Einstein, and maybe William Shakespeare, Lionel Messi was one of the first individuals whose life was glorified for me. His impact on soccer these last few years is evident. Messi, now 36-year-old, is a professional football player from Rosario, Argentina and is considered one of the best players of all time. When he was just 13 years old, he signed with Barcelona and relocated to Spain to pursue soccer where he would later debut at age 17. From 2004 onwards, he was quickly rising in the ranks of the soccer world, establishing himself as a household name, setting records for most goals scored in a given season, winning MVP awards, and securing gold medals and wins for both Barcelona and Argentina. When Lionel Messi signed a two and a half year contract with a Floridian team in the MLS division, Inter Miami CF earlier this year, soccer fans across the US country— and the world for that matter — turned their attention towards the States. Would Messi at last be the player that transformed the league and the sport in America?
Since his debut in July 2023, it is indisputable that Messi has quickly transformed Inter Miami. Despite having joined half way through the season, he has set a record 10 goals and 7 assists in the MLS-Liga League tournament which Miami won for the first time in history. He scored in his first seven appearances, catalyzing Miami to unseen success in the MLS-LIGA tournament and MLS bracket. To illustrate the notion that Messi is single handedly revolutionizing the team's performance, one only has to look at their matches before he joined, while he was actively playing, and after his injury which caused him to have to sit out a good chunk of the season. Both before he joined and after his injury, Inter Miami was unsuccessful in winning a game that Messi didn’t appear in.
There is no question that Messi is one of the most talented individuals to grace our fields. Still, some might question whether or not he is capable of bringing about the transformative change needed to popularize MLS in America.
In fact, the change might already be in motion. Since this summer, Inter Miami jersey sales have skyrocketed, their stadium is selling tickets at unprecedented rates, and MLS views have steadily risen since Messi’s recruitment. His arrival has brought with it huge economic impacts as well. In 2022, MLS teams brought in an average of $57 million in revenue per year, which is hundreds of millions lower than the average of all other national men’s sports teams. However, since Messi’s arrival to the league, Inter Miami alone has more than quadrupled that number, observing $265 million in revenue in 2023. Any team that faces Inter Miami has also observed a huge increase in profit.. More than just the teams, streaming services have also been profiting from his arrival. According to one economist, “More than 110,000 fans signed up for Apple TV’s MLS Season Pass on the day the Messi deal was announced, with another 65,000 signing up for the service on the day of his first game with Inter Miami as well.”
While these statistics do indicate the popularity and success of sports,the staggering numbers raise bigger questions about the role of money in sports today. Messi is one of the highest paid professional football players in history. However, after leaving PSG, he turned down contracts from teams in Saudi Arabia and Barcelona which offered him larger contracts than Miami, in order to be closer to family and have a calmer lifestyle for him and his family. While money wasn’t the catalyzing factor for Messi to choose the States, might it be the determiner for what it takes to make soccer appreciated by America?
In the United States, sports scholars speculate that a combination of factors have been the cause of the lack of popularity soccer has received. For one, the sport lacks the“extremity” of popular sports like baseball, basketball, and football, thus its more straightforward nature of its rules and structure, provide less opportunity for fans to tangibly engage with the matches through things like gambling. The nature of soccer inherently challenges what people have been socialized in the US to believe is entertaining about athletics. Soccer is, and historically has been, streamed significantly less than other sports on American television. When broadcasted, soccer was typically shown on secondary sports channels like ESPN 2, and for this reason had lower budgeting for entertainment production, things like camera angles, lighting, and engaging commentary. The lack of coverage is due to the lack of stoppage times in the game. Aside from halftime, there are no timeouts structured into a given match, thus no stoppages in play for commercial breaks —- a deal breaker for corporations trying to increase ad sales. The absence of a fan culture and visual presence of the sport further meant less youth are interested in playing the sport, causing a lack of infrastructure for soccer instruction, competition, and the continued cultivation of interest. Some scholars also attribute America’s relative geographic isolation from the sport as cause for its initial delay in popularity, though other examples would prove institutional challenges also keep it from blossoming within the States as well.
People will be forever changed by the impact that Lionel Messi has had introducing them to the world’s game and hopefully is true for years to come. For now, we can see that even if Lionel Messi can’t change fundamental issues with Soccer’s perception in the US, he is nevertheless having a major success in introducing new generations to all the community, entertainment, discipline, diplomacy, beauty, and spectacle soccer has to offer.