To state the obvious, Lionel Messi’s arrival at Inter Miami in 2023 was a big deal. It mattered to both the MLS and its media partner Apple, which owns the global rights to the league for a decade and used the World Cup winner as a key way to sell its Season Pass subscription.
However, the Argentinian icon’s contract runs out at the end of the 2025 season. There is no confirmation yet that he will stay stateside beyond that, although it’s worth noting his club has previously made positive noises about a potential new deal. Either way, in the not-too-distant future both the MLS and Apple will have to think about life beyond Messi. Tom Dart summed up the issue nicely in The Guardian back in December:
Lionel Messi is so central to MLS’s appeal and marketing strategies that a game without him almost seems like a non-event.
The truth is that Apple’s $2.5bn deal for the MLS has not been a huge success. We don’t know the viewing numbers – obviously, it’s Apple – but it is fair to conclude that it has not helped make the US league part of the sporting cultural zeitgeist. Do you ever hear anyone chatting about how they settled down to watch Portland vs LA Galaxy? No, me neither. As Dart put it:
It’s reasonable to infer that if the numbers were impressive, we’d know.
Quite.
MLS Minus Messi
MLS match attendances might be strong, but when it comes to media the European leagues and competitions still dominate the men’s game. Whether the NWSL can make a breakthrough is a different question.
Even more than the Saudi League, the flow of stars in their prime to the MLS has stopped, if it ever began. If Lionel Messi is not going to make you take out an extra subscription, almost nobody is. I don’t think many people subscribe to DAZN to watch Cristiano Ronaldo any more either. The streamers think ageing heroes are going to bring in the viewers, but there is not much eveidence to support that view.
Apple has not done a good enough job telling the story of some players who have built their careers in the MLS. This could be one angle it looks to develop in the run-up to the “post-Messi” era as well as following Netflix in building a catalogue of sports-adjacent content.
If things don’t progress, the MLS could look like a very expensive mistake for Apple.
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