When Lionel Messi signed to join MLS, his contract would have included a stipulation to receive part of the income generated by the Apple TV streaming partner.
Since May, Messi’s relationship with MLS has also included a sponsorship agreement that has made its new sports drink, Mas + by Messi, official league hydration partner.
And now, MLS seems ready to allow Miami to add to his historically stacked list by signing another friend of Messi near, Rodrigo de Paul – league spending rules by structuring the agreement as a loan from Atlético Madrid with a purchase option.
After all this, we are still waiting for Messi to sign a long-awaited contract extension to stay in Miami beyond 2025. And those who have questions about this will not be able to ask him soon, because he will not be among the 12 mL players available for journalists during the media day on Monday during the 2025 mls star match.
It may not be the worst news in the world for journalists who care to tell interesting stories. Messi’s football skills are extraordinary, but it is almost as talented in the pastime of longtime athletes to give interviews in a moralized manner.
But for those who hoped that Messi’s relationship with MLS would in fact be transforming, it is just another torsion of the knife: a reality control that the pact between the eight times the winner of the Golden Ball and the 30 -year league is extraordinarily unilateral.
It may be understandable to try to keep the biggest star who has ever played in your happy competitions. It is also understandable to start asking how – and when – it will lead to real changes.
Messi was supposed to be a manual moment, which would make MLS a more attractive destination for more younger stars.
There are few signs of that materialize in the other 29 clubs in the league.
Kevin de Bruyne and Antoine Griezmann would have refused offers from the United States despite considerable interest. Olivier Giroud and Lafc chose to terminate his contract by mutual consent, allowing the top scorer of all time in France to go home after a year of difficulties. Cristiano Ronaldo took more Saudi money after all, despite a brief window when a MLS move seemed plausible.
Messi was also supposed to be a vehicle to transport more occasional fans to MLS stages and screens.
At the box office, Messi’s initial bracing has helped the MLS to record an average attendance of the regular season of 23,234 in 2024. But so far, 2025 promises to be an average regression.
In the world of television and streaming, the arrival of Messi clearly sparked an initial increase in MLS season Pass on Apple TV. But the longer term impact is more difficult to quantify, Apple continues to offer little tangible data.
And whether realistic or not, Messi came to America in the hope that he would be for MLS what Pelé was for the NASL there is a generation.
Those who followed the Argentinian even knew at a distance that it was a false hope.
Messi has always been an introverted figure with a soft voice – someone who accepts the fame of the riches she offers himself and her inner circle, but rarely kisses her. Even in the controlled environment of an advertising shoot, the finished product rarely sees it say more than: “no, Michelob Ultra” or “well Asistencia”.
But this expectation still existed. And MLS was happy to protect him – either in the naive hope that Messi would deliver something close to the implacable embassy of Pelé for the New York Cosmos, or in the more cynical belief that fans would not care when he did not do it.
Messi could play in MLS. But there is hardly assimilated. If anything, its existence in Inter Miami is more like a family enclave carved from the rest of the league every week that passes.
From the reconstruction of a list now heavy on the Argentinian and other South American talents, to the appointment of a head coach and a sports director whose most obvious qualifications are long-standing ties with the team’s most famous player, with a continuous refusal to interact with all the members of the hand-sorted media, except a few, the comfort of n ° 10 in the world has exceeded all other concerns.
It is in the prerogative of Messi and Miami. This can even be a winning formula on the ground.
But it is difficult to see how it leads to the big change that MLS was surveying.
