This year, Messi’s presence came with the promise of additional scrutiny. Internally from clubs, externally from fans, and, of course, from the league’s media partner, Apple, which is set to begin its second year distributing the league’s broadcasts globally.
For the Western Conference teams, it was a matter of which three would get to host. In the East, it was when they would get to host, which matters because MLS often plays during international windows and will not go on hiatus during this summer’s Copa America in the United States.
After leading Argentina to a World Cup title in 2022, Messi is expected to continue playing a vital role for his country. He could miss as many as seven league games — four on the road — due to Copa America obligations (June 20-July 14). By design, all four of those road games are against teams in the East that hosted games Messi played in during the 2023 season: Philadelphia, Nashville, Charlotte and Cincinnati (U.S. Open Cup). Additionally, Miami will play at the New York Red Bulls, which also hosted Messi last season, during the March FIFA window, and Argentina has yet to schedule a game in March.
“Every team wants to host a Messi game. Who wouldn’t?” Pursel said. “But we wanted to do it in a fair manner and try to base it mostly on the competition side.”
When news broke last summer that Messi was coming to MLS, the possibility of hosting Messi in 2024 immediately became a topic of conversation inside the Galaxy front office.
“We played Miami at their house, but we never played them at ours,” Galaxy president Tom Braun told ESPN. “So, I think the expectation on our end was we should have a good chance to host Miami because we’d never hosted them before.”
Even if the Galaxy had hosted Miami in a prior season, it would have been easy to understand a bit of rule-bending to make this game possible, given the David Beckham-sized link between the clubs.
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“I know people traveled from Europe to come over and watch Michael Jordan play a game when he played for the Chicago Bulls, just because they knew it was something special and he was the best basketball player ever to play. This is the same type of thing.”
While the Galaxy have decided against taking the game to a larger venue, Vermes said he was open to the club hosting Inter Miami at nearby Arrowhead Stadium, the 76,416-capacity home of the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs. Arrowhead served as SKC’s first stadium from the league’s first year in 1996 through 2007, when they were known as the Kansas City Wizards. They last played there in 2010, drawing over 50,000 for a friendly against Manchester United.
“That would be a rerun for me because I’ve played a lot of games in there myself over the years,” Vermes said. “But yeah, if there’s an opportunity for us to do that, that would be great.”
The concept of playing select games at larger venues is something that has worked well for the San Jose Earthquakes in recent years. Last season, they hosted the Galaxy at Stanford Stadium, drawing 43,000 fans, and LAFC at Levi’s Stadium, the home of the San Francisco 49ers, drawing 45,000. With those two games, the Quakes’ average attendance at the end of the year (18,412) was more than the capacity of their home stadium, PayPal Park (18,000). The game at Levi’s was so well-received, Earthquakes president Jared Shawlee said, that the team plans to open up the stadium’s upper decks this year when it hosts LAFC again and expects to sell out the 67,000-seat stadium.
Shawlee told ESPN he has had multiple calls with other league executives about the strategy, but so far no teams have stated an intention to move their Messi game to a larger venue. That could of course change in the coming weeks now that each club knows when it will host Miami.
