Lionel Messi’s Miami move puts him in a new position: MLS salesman
It was last fall — just a few months before Lionel Messi hoisted high the FIFA men’s World Cup trophy — that I dialed Ray Hudson, the magisterial man himself.
The topic was how the lifestyle of South Florida appealed to the most famous athletes in the world each offseason. That has included Messi owning several properties in the Miami area, which has long played a key role in speculation that maybe one day he might choose to play in Major League Soccer and make the United States home base for some time.
Hudson, who played against Pele and George Best and Franz Beckenbauer, always believed Miami would entice Messi.
“It was a vibe. It is a vibe. It’s difficult to categorize,” Hudson told me about Miami’s appeal. “It’s a wonderful mix of all things.”
That wonderful mix Hudson boasted about is adding Lionel Messi to it, on a more permanent basis. Messi, who turns 36 in two weeks’ time, announced Wednesday that he intends to sign with Inter Miami of MLS. In choosing life in the U.S., Messi is attempting to gain something he hasn’t achieved since before he was the mulleted young man at the FC Barcelona academy system: a place ever so slightly away from the spotlight.
In an interview with Mundo Deportivo Wednesday evening after announcing his plans to sign with Miami, Messi declared that: “Even more so after winning the World Cup, which was what I needed to close my career on this side and live in the United States in a different way and enjoy the day-to-day life much more.”
Rather than accepting what was offered as a package of $1 billion dollars for two years in Saudi Arabia, rather than again subjecting himself to the trauma of his emotional exit from Barcelona in 2021, Messi is going to bring his family to Miami to attempt to soak in this last phase of his playing career. It’s a moment all elite athletes reach, where they internally know it’s time to chase an alternate ending, one they have more control over.
But in making that decision, Messi has given himself some measure of control of soccer in America too. Or, at least, he will eventually – It’s waiting for a few very important signatures at various levels with various companies. As my colleagues at The Athletic reported earlier this week, Messi is going to get a piece of the revenue pie from both MLS, Apple TV+ and is seeing his title sponsor, Adidas, play a role in getting him to South Florida. He will certainly be the highest-paid athlete in league history.
He’s coming because he’s still Lionel Messi, but he will need to excavate a new version of himself. Leaving behind the comforts he’s cultivated indicates that he’s open to the notion that he might need to tap into something new, something beyond his domineering left foot: being a salesman on a consistent, everyday basis. This landmark package will have its demands. This isn’t Steven Gerrard or Frank Lampard on their last legs — this is Messi having major monetary incentives to further expand his brand and the sport in the U.S.
In some ways it will be the ultimate test for the most famous athlete still going, who is also a self-described introvert. The walls he’s put up over the years will be tested here, too. Will he want to play a part in the car wash of late-night TV show appearances the way Beckham and Zlatan did before him? Will he want to help sell the sport ahead of North America hosting the 2026 FIFA men’s World Cup? Will he still be playing by then? And while his connection with the United States’ immense Spanish-speaking population will be immediate and hugely valuable, how will he cross the language barrier when, to this point, he has rarely spoken English in public (and rarely been required to)? Does that language barrier even matter when this is Lionel Messi we’re talking about?
The level of access sports journalists enjoy in the U.S. is markedly different from anywhere Messi has played before. Messi may (depending on if and how MLS rewrites its media policy in his favor) have to address reporters several times a week. He may have to face them in a cramped visitor’s locker room in suburban Denver or in the bowels of a football stadium in Seattle. How many different ways can he answer the same questions about how good (or not good) he finds MLS’s level of play to be?
One MLS executive told me Wednesday that Messi’s arrival cannot be undersold. “Obviously with what happened with David Beckham (in 2007) and the eyeballs that brought, that was transformational for the league,” said the executive who was not allowed to speak about the Messi signing as it is not officially finalized with the league. “Messi raises everything across the board. We’ve all heard Commissioner (Don) Garber talk about being a league of choice and all these things. This, on some level, is some validation of that.”
Two weeks before he stepped to the dais in August 2021 and said goodbye to the club where he transformed into the most tantalizing player around, Messi was at one of his vacation homes in Miami. His address had been released, somehow, and fans gathered outside. The walls of the pearl-white compound were high, but eventually, Messi opened up the front gate to let his fans in for a few seconds.
Messi has demonstrated an incredible ability to make structures around him conform to him. Can he draw America in on his own terms? Behind every athlete is a story and we’re obsessed with their stories because stories make them immortal. How does an immortal enjoy a midweek match on a rainy night in Charlotte?
We’re about to find out.
(Top photo: JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images)
