Messi to Miami hot takes: What move to MLS means for player, Barca, fans

Lionel Messi, possibly the greatest soccer player of all time, is taking his talents to South Beach. The former Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain superstar announced on Wednesday that he is heading to MLS with Inter Miami CF as a free agent this summer.

The prospect of a player who led Argentina to the World Cup less than six months ago playing his club football in the United States has sent shock waves through the sport.

What led Messi, the seven-time winner of the Ballon d’Or, to make the move stateside? What impact does such a stellar signing have on MLS and soccer in the U.S.? How does the disappointment of Messi not returning to Barcelona affect the club for whom he won 35 major trophies and whom he left as their record goal scorer? And will the forward’s fans, who regard him as the GOAT, follow him on his new journey?

– Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, more (U.S.)
– MLS table: Inter Miami sit bottom of the East

ESPN writers Gabriele Marcotti, Jeff Carlisle, Sam Marsden and Luis Miguel Echegaray give their views on this huge move.

The big picture: Messi opts to conquer new ground than revisit his past

And so, he has decided. Major League Soccer has won the Lionel Messi Final Four bracket, defeating Saudi competition in the final after both advanced past romantic long shots: the financially hamstrung Barcelona, where he spent 21 years, and Newell’s Old Boys, the hometown team he supported as a boy.

Messi’s contract with PSG expires at the end of this month, but really, more than a free agent signing, this move is more like a corporate joint venture between Inter Miami, MLS, the league’s broadcast rights holders (Apple), Adidas and the Lionel Andres Messi Corporation. We’ve been here before in 2007, when David Beckham — who, as if to prove the circularity of human existence, is a part-owner of Inter Miami) joined the LA Galaxy. And frankly, it would have been pretty much the same thing if he had opted for the Saudi Pro League, except there it would mostly be one source footing the bill: the country’s sovereign wealth fund.

(Indeed, in what to some may appear as a classic cart-before-the-horse move, Messi signed a reported $400 million contract with the Saudi tourism board … assuming he guaranteed them exclusivity, don’t expect him to be shilling for the delights of South Beach any time soon.)

Commercially, Messi will bring eyeballs to U.S. domestic soccer like nobody before him. More than Beckham, more than Zlatan Ibrahimovic — and for old-timers, more than Johan Cruyff, Franz Beckenbauer and Pele, if only because we live in a far more connected world today. Messi is not a natural pitchman, lacking both Ibrahimovic’s quotability and Beckham’s charisma, but hey: he’s Messi. He delivered the World Cup for Argentina less than six months ago, he has seven Ballons d’Or at home (winning the last of those 18 months ago) and he has scored more than 800 goals for club and country in his career.

He’s not the first legit GOAT candidate to play in North America because Pele was there in the 1970s, but the key difference is that half a century later, Messi will land in a very different country — one that is more diverse and more soccer-savvy, and one where he’s seen as a legitimate athlete, not a guy who plays the sport because he’s too uncoordinated to play baseball, too small to play basketball and too weak to play football.

You also suspect that Messi can deliver on the pitch. His two years at PSG ended in acrimony, with Messi booed by his own fans and most seeing his stint as a gigantic waste of money. He turns 36 in a couple of weeks and has neither the stamina, nor acceleration, he once had. In fact, he spends much of the game literally at walking pace: he doesn’t press at all and the team has to be built around him. Yet he still delivered a league-leading 14 assists while scoring 16 goals, none of them from the penalty spot, for PSG. That’s because, interspersed with his placid strolls around the pitch, are sudden bursts of genius and acceleration that still befuddle most opponents, the sort of thing you can keep doing even into your late 30s. (Well, if you’re Messi anyway.)

Maybe it was inevitable that, having finally conquered the World Cup, he would opt to conquer a new world rather than revisit his past, ultimately plumping for North America over the Gulf. Fans in North America should count themselves lucky. Because if you attend the right MLS game, you may be able to one day tell your grandkids that you saw Messi in the flesh. Just like your dad tells you he saw Michael Jordan, your grandfather tells you he saw Muhammad Ali and your great-grandfather tells you he saw Babe Ruth.

That’s the category of superstar in which Messi exists. — Marcotti

ESPN can also confirm that a cut of revenue from new subscribers to Apple’s MLS Season Pass streaming service is being offered to Messi. Any agreement involving Adidas would strictly be between the player and the company, and it wouldn’t directly involve MLS, despite the German company outfitting the league’s clubs exclusively since 2006.

All of that said, the times — and needs — of MLS are different. When Beckham signed on in 2007, MLS was still trying to get off the launch pad with just 13 teams. His arrival not only set the stage for other stars such as Thierry Henry and Kaka to come over, but also helped accelerate an expansion boom that by next season will have reached 30 teams.

Messi’s arrival is poised to take MLS to the moon, or even beyond. He is arguably the greatest player who ever lived, something Beckham never was.

The league has been laying the foundation for this move for years, with the increased continental footprint combining well with the global reach of its recent broadcast rights deal with Apple TV. With the 2026 World Cup set to take place in the U.S., Mexico and Canada, the potential is there to greatly increase revenues for all parties involved in the deal.

As for Inter Miami, Messi is a massive antidote for a last-place team who have struggled to generate quality chances, with their expected goal (xG) mark of 0.82 per 90 minutes the worst in the league. If former teammate Sergio Busquets also arrives, so much the better, although there will need to be some adapting to a league that is several notches below what they are accustomed to, not to mention the weather and travel demands. The sight of Messi playing in an 18,000-seat stadium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, will take some getting used to.