It might be his decision Lionel Messi to continue his career in the MLS to wake up the “sleeping giant” of world football and quickly change the future of the most popular team sport on the planet? Answer “YES” and it seems shocking when you consider that the influence of one person can produce much more impressive results in a few hours than the endless efforts of decades based on development plans that have developed at the speed of a sleepy turtle.

The mere news that Messi had decided to cross the Atlantic and sign with David Beckham’s Inter Miami, one of the worst (competitive) teams in MLS, set off a tsunami of interest and sent prices skyrocketing. And that’s literally, not figuratively. Within hours, tickets for Messi’s new team’s next games were sold out, and their availability automatically combined with black market logic at an alarming rate.

Tickets that remained unclaimed began to be played at prices that, at the first stage, are up to 20 times higher than the prices of the previous … hour! And this is at the official level, because if we include in the discussion the number of tickets sold by companies “second-hand” on the terms of the legal “black market”, then the ceiling is not defined. VIP tickets, which until now were sold for several tens of dollars, will soon exceed 10 thousand dollars and God knows where!

On the brink of insanity

The excitement that reigns in the United States after the expected arrival of Messi borders on paranoia. So far, Inter Miami has sold an average of 12,637 tickets per league game, starting at $29. A full house for the upcoming games, even those where there is no certainty that Messi will be able to play, is considered a given. and question (maximum) a few days. For example, three hours before the announcement of Messi’s transfer, George Kutsia’s tickets for the Chicago Fire match against Inter Miami cost the “cheap” public only $ 37 apiece. With the announcement of the transition, the prices of the highest positions in one case jumped up to $500, and the lowest ones – up to $1000!

A more subdued picture in the first match in which Messi will be eligible to play is on July 8 against D.C. United’s Brigadier Fuda. With the Argentine superstar unlikely to make his debut there, with the second MLS transfer window opening on July 5, just three days before, ticket prices have gone up…fourfold. Instead of $29, the cheapest became $186 in a few hours, and this price will continue to rise as demand increases and supply decreases! It goes without saying that prices for the most preferred seats are much higher.

Even more impressive was the increase in ticket prices for the first game, for which Messi is expected to be ready. On July 21, Inter Miami will play Mexican Cruz Azul in the League Cup, a new MLS-Mexico tournament created to increase the interest of American football fans. Prior to Messi, prices for this game started at $29 and within a few hours jumped to $329 for the cheapest game, with an upward trend of course.

According to experts, the real boom will come from ticket resale platforms, which are an establishment in the US market. Anyone who has purchased a ticket for a sports, arts or any other high demand event has the right to legally resell it at a multiple of the listed price, with the platform acting as an intermediary and charging the corresponding fee. And all the signs convince even the most skeptics that especially in the first games of Messi in the MLS, the ball will be lost where the forearm reaches!

Agreements with giant companies

Understandably, Messi’s decision to leave the safety of Europe for the first time and pursue a career in the US goes well beyond his own footballing future. While the financial part of the deal doesn’t even touch on the unimaginable numbers that his move to Al Hilal from Saudi Arabia promised, at heights far beyond those of Cristiano Ronaldo’s move to Al Nasr or Karim Benzema to Al -Ittihad, she surpassed a lot. MLS short blanket. Special arrangements had to be made with giant corporate sponsors to secure the resources to go beyond the organization’s austerity economics, always on its (minor for the American market) revenues.

The US is a superpower in all world sports, but in football it has lagged far behind, despite the tremendous effort it has made from time to time to bring the world’s most popular team sport into the life of the average American fan. The success of the US team at the 1st World Championship in 1930, where they took 3rd place, went completely unnoticed in the country and did not touch anyone. The same thing happened at the first post-war World Cup in 1950 in Brazil, despite the US’s historic 1-0 victory over England, which considered by many to be the biggest surprise in football history.

The first organized attempt to penetrate football deeper into the US came nearly 3 decades later when the famed Pelé signed with the New York World at the end of his great career. The news initially caused a stir, but in the end it did not affect much. Football in the United States was still in its infancy, and the environment was not conducive to its competition with other, much more popular sports in the country, such as American football, baseball or basketball, with long traditions and crowds of dedicated fans.

The next attempt was made with the organization of the World Cup in the USA in 1994, when Greece competed at the World Cup for the first time. The following paradox was created there: this is an event where every ticket record was broken (and remains to this day), and the occupancy reached 100%! And yet, despite the fact that the Americans had an amazing sports fan mentality and filled the stadiums, they were not fascinated by football. Urban legend has it that from start to finish of the event, the fans jumped up and down to celebrate every time the ball went over the bar, thinking it was some kind of American football!

On the occasion of the 1994 World Cup, a year earlier, in 1993, Major League Soccer (MLS) was formed to make a more organized effort to raise the level of football through a more organized league by NBA standards. The first professional league was held in 1996 with only 10 teams that met (strict) financial and organizational criteria. The first year was encouraging, but the US’s resounding failure at the 1998 World Cup in France was a blow to the gut. American fans were disappointed and the MLS stadiums were nearly empty.

The backlash was the decision to build stadiums exclusively for football. The financiers were found, and with the changes made to the system of holding the championship, the interest of the fans began to warm up again. Always with strict financial and organizational criteria, the number of teams has gradually increased to 20, of which 17 are from the USA and 3 from Canada. Its system is modeled after the NBA, i.e. with playoffs and a closed league, no relegation or promotion from lower categories, a system alien to the logic of world football.

Beckham Transfer