Messi extending his stay allows ambitious Miami, MLS to reach higher

An abrupt ending for Inter Miami, MLS and their greatest venture does not appear to be in the cards. Lionel Messi is set to extend his contract with Miami, according to David Ornstein. By resigning Messi, the club will have its Argentine World Cup winner in uniform when it opens its new stadium next year. And while that’s a primary goal of Inter Miami, Messi’s renewal could have a larger impact on MLS and on American sports culture, as well. For all of the attention and eyeballs it receives, Messi’s Inter Miami has also become the team that many love to hate.

“A lot of people are jealous of Inter Miami,” club managing owner Jorge Mas said earlier this week.

Before Miami’s expansion season in 2020, there wasn’t an MLS club that conjured such visceral sentiments. Yet Messi extending his stay in MLS may also have his and Miami’s detractors rolling their eyes to the news. Remember, some fans and MLS executives believe that Messi has an oversized presence in the league.

“I think the awareness about our league has grown a lot since Messi’s arrival, everywhere in the world,” an MLS sporting director told for the 2025 anonymous executive survey. “People would have probably started to joke, if they haven’t already, and called the league Messi League Soccer. So you also have to be careful that it doesn’t become negative at some point.”

If you ask Mas about Messi’s impact in MLS and in North American soccer, though, he’ll profess that there is no shortage of positives for having one of the sport’s all-time greats on American shores. Selfishly, Mas wants Messi to help unveil Miami Freedom Park next year while wearing the captain’s armband.

During an interview with renowned Spanish-language commentator Andres Cantor for FDP Radio earlier this week, Mas detailed various aspects of the Inter Miami project, Messi’s impending contract extension and how Messi has influenced the sport in the U.S. Mas said that courting Messi to MLS was a four-year negotiation and that finalizing a deal to keep Messi in Miami through 2026 appears to have been less strenuous.

“The stars are aligning for something great, for a beautiful future for the club and for Lionel. It’s solely his decision,” Mas said. “I expect that within 60-90 days we’ll have to determine all of this. My hope has always been — and everything we’re doing — is to see Messi play at our new stadium in 2026. Hopefully, that happens.

“We’ll be ready to open the new stadium for the start of the (MLS) season next March,” Mas added. “I anticipate that we’ll see our captain Lionel Messi (play) in our new stadium.”

The news will be well-received by MLS commissioner Don Garber and owners of MLS franchises. Messi has elevated the profile of the league. He’s driving heightened awareness of MLS and creating new commercial opportunities for Inter Miami. In Argentina, a country with a rich history of exporting players to MLS but one that doesn’t necessarily respect the product on the field, Messi has bridged that gap, ever so slightly. Inter Miami has become the country’s adopted MLS club.

More time in MLS will certainly lead to more marketing deals for Messi and, likely, his wife Antonella, who is a global fashion influencer. There is so much commercial gain for Messi to still tap into while he’s an active athlete in the U.S., especially with the U.S., Mexico and Canada co-hosting the World Cup next summer.

“When the story about soccer in this country is written … Pelé came to the U.S. Beckham had an extraordinary impact on the league in 2007. Now Lionel is with Inter Miami,” Mas told Cantor. “He’ll change (soccer) radically, and it will be everlasting. The Club World Cup is coming. Then the World Cup. For the first time in U.S. history, the world’s biggest commercial market, the most popular athlete is an Argentine soccer player. That’s the impact he’s had and but there’s also the impact that the U.S. has had on Lionel Messi. His brand and the legend that is Messi. Seven months after he arrived he had his own Super Bowl ad.”

Plus, according to Mas, every team in MLS benefits when the Messi roadshow travels across the country.

“The league was previously trying to survive with 10 teams,” Mas continued. “That’s not the case anymore. We have the best player of all time. We’re helping to generate better attendance. Inter Miami can play in any 80,000-seat stadium (in the U.S.). The league’s finances have improved. We have to use what we’ve created. The eyes of the world are on us.”

That’s a subjective claim, although not too implausible. Every football fan in the world should know where Messi currently plays professionally. But whether that has led to more eyes on the league is uncertain. Apple’s 10-year, $2.5 billion partnership with MLS has led to production improvements and additional content for fans to consume.

On the other hand, the subscription-based MLS Season Pass limits opportunities to grow the league’s viewership. Apple does not release viewership data, so there’s no telling whether Messi has had an outsized influence or if MLS remains locked in its own status quo. The Apple deal, and Messi’s subsequent arrival in America, was expected to initiate change to MLS and its restricted sporting structure. That hasn’t materialized. In fact, Garber confirmed that switching to a calendar more aligned with the European game (fall to spring) will not occur until the 2027 season at the earliest.

“Change the (league) format, change the salary cap, allow us to bring more attractive players,” one MLS sporting director told in March. “But also they have to end the deal with Apple. It’s bad for the fans.”

Mas is among the most outspoken and ambitious MLS owners. He may not admit this publicly, but if it were up to him, he’d likely blow up the current MLS model in order to better compete at a global level. He told Cantor that MLS is not an American sports league like the NFL, the NBA and Major League Baseball. Football’s hierarchy, he said, is concentrated in Europe, and to some degree, in South America. MLS, in its 30th season, continues to be viewed as a developing league with a short history.

“We have to change that,” Mas said. “We have to compete globally and open ourselves up to the world. That’s what I’m working on. That’s my next big challenge.”

So what is Mas’ idea, with Messi in tow, to significantly raise the profile of MLS?

“We have to think big, especially with MLS,” he said. “I don’t want MLS to be the seventh-, eighth- or ninth-most successful league in the world. I don’t think that in the U.S. media landscape, that MLS viewership should come after Liga MX and the Premier League. I aspire for MLS to be one of the top leagues in the world, or the top league in the world. What do we have to do to achieve that? Attract the best players in the world. I hope that in three, four, five years, that 15 to 20 of the top 50 players in the world play here.”

Miami is certainly trying to do its part on that front. reported this week that Manchester City’s departing playmaker Kevin De Bruyne could join Messi in Fort Lauderdale this summer. Inter Miami owns the Belgian’s discovery rights, which puts the club in the driver’s seat to negotiate a deal with a player who, in theory, could lead Inter Miami’s post-Messi story when the time comes.

“The goal will continue to be to bring the best players in the world (to Inter Miami),” said Mas. “I’ll always have the vision that Miami will have the best players. So I’ll always want Inter Miami to have three top players. We will continue to aspire to win. That’s what I’ve promised our fans.”

If an agreement materializes, De Bruyne would be a massive addition to Inter Miami’s attack, one that relies extensively on Messi’s magic.

On Wednesday night, in helping Miami to the Concacaf Champions Cup semifinals, Messi scored his 42nd goal since signing with the club in 2023. In that two-year span, no other player in MLS has been as influential in the attack as Messi. To no surprise, Messi is Inter Miami’s all-time leader in open-play shot-ending sequences per 90 minutes. So, of course, Mas and the rest of the Inter Miami family are ecstatic that the most decorated player ever will stay the course.

His ties to the club and to MLS won’t end when the new contract does, either. Mas reiterated what has been widely reported, that after Messi’s playing days are over, he’ll become an Inter Miami co-owner.

“He’ll become one of our partners, to me, to my brother (Jose) and to David (Beckham) at the club,” Mas said. “That’s what we were able to provide to him. Something that will last beyond his playing days. He’ll be a stakeholder at the club. An owner. That’s what attracted him to this project. That could last five, 10, 20, 30 years. I’ve told him that this is part of his legacy. Something that he can leave to his children.”

That chapter, however, is for another time. His playing days will continue on for a little while longer — in Miami, and in MLS.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.