Yes, the Argentine megastar will get paid handsomely, but there’s more to his decision than that.
. LeBron James is the only American athlete who even comes close to Messi’s worldwide celebrity, but he has pretty much maximized his stardom: There’s nowhere left for LeBron to go that would make him an even bigger name. But for Messi, there’s one more destination to conquer, and it’s a place that might finally be ready for him. And now, at last, Lionel Messi is coming to America.he’d be joining Major League Soccer’s Inter Miami.
There was a time when it wouldn’t have sense for Messi to come here, no matter the amount of money involved.
Part of this comes down to the money, of course. But it’s also a sign of just how far MLS itself has come since its 1996 inception and even since Beckham’s move to the league in 2007. Twenty-seven years ago, the MLS was a global joke at best; 16 years ago, Beckham was widely mocked for finishing his career in a place that still calls it “soccer.” But today? Messi might just do the one thing he couldn’t do anywhere else: He might just make himself bigger.
It helps that the league gets so much more media exposure now. When MLS began, the league didn’t even receive any rights fees; ESPN showed ten games, ABC showed the MLS Cup, and the league and the networks divvied up the advertising revenue. MLS and ESPN signed a new deal in 2007 — not coincidentally, Beckham’s first year in the league — that paid the league $8 million a year but still only showed one national game a week.
Messi is also bigger in the United States than he even could have been at the beginning of his career and far bigger than Beckham was when he arrived. International leagues are part of the fabric of sports culture here in a way that was scarcely imaginable a generation ago: In many cases, America, with its variety of streaming options, is actually theplace to watch international soccer.
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