David Beckham said in 2018 that Miami needed a star when his new Major League Soccer franchise was born. Five years later, he and his co-owners, brothers Jorge and Jose Mas, have delivered the biggest star of them all: Lionel Messi. Messi’s move could be a catalyst for the sport in the United States in the three years before they co-host the 2026 World Cup with Canada and Mexico, and he could play his final game in club football and major international tournament in the USA. His move has echoes of Beckham’s joining LA Galaxy in 2007 and Pele’s being drawn to the New York Cosmos in the old NASL in the 1970s.
The move will be good for MLS, especially in the short term while Messi is there, but it won’t necessarily be good for soccer in America. Anticipation of Messi’s arrival has already seen Inter Miami’s social media following skyrocket beyond those of many NHL, MLB and NFL teams, and cumulative ticket sales for their games from July to the end of the season have seen an almost 28-fold increase since Messi’s announcement. However, North American men’s professional sports consist primarily of the ‘Big Four’ major leagues, and MLS is often an afterthought in general sports coverage.
For Messi’s impact to go beyond the superficial, something will need to be built at a local level on the ground on the back of this momentous move. MLS might have to open up somewhat, paying some mind to other soccer organisations running parallel to and below it, and it may benefit from doing so. Its rules and regulations have helped forge steadier foundations than previous pro-soccer leagues, while single-entity single-mindedness has facilitated self-preservation. To facilitate Messi’s signing, MLS had to think outside the box and offer him added extras that take to new levels what MLS and its partners can offer a player.
Asking one player to change the landscape of a sport in a region so large and varied is an impossible task. Even Pele couldn’t turn a nation of (American) football fans into a nation of soccer fans, though in some ways he and Beckham laid the groundwork for Messi to give it a go. For the effects of Messi’s arrival to be permanent in American soccer, something will need to be built at a local level on the ground on the back of this momentous move.