Major League Soccer and The Lionel Messi Experiment
Football in North America is at it again
There's an episode of the impeccable comedy series Spaced in which Daisy, one of the lead characters, partakes of a little chemical support to settle her nerves before a job interview.
Gripped by paranoia, Daisy becomes convinced a squirrel has followed her to the interview (for a role at a women's magazine named Flaps, obviously) because she saw it several times on the way there.
When she confides in a fellow candidate, she's asked how she knows it wasn't just a lot of different squirrels.
Anyway, there are a lot of gambling ads around trying to leech off the European Championships, aren't there?
It's parasite season.
Major League Soccer and The Lionel Messi Experiment
The late Grant Wahl wasn't prone to acquiescence. Principled to the end, Wahl was willing to cast a sceptical eye in the direction of power and prevailing public wisdom. His creative methods of making a point were gleefully provocative, usually effective and always worth the price of admission.
Sports media in the United States of America has an historical tendency to be dismissive or outright hostile towards Major League Soccer. It's not so long ago that the beautiful game was regarded with shrugging contempt. Its global popularity seemed to work against it as far as the American sports press was concerned.
Wahl knew, loved and served football. He was far from a lone voice but he was, with Sports Illustrated behind him, an important and respected one. Wahl advocated for MLS but he held it to account too. In 2009 he published The Beckham Experiment.
The book rejected any idea that MLS signing former England captain David Beckham from Real Madrid to play for Los Angeles Galaxy was automatically good for the league, that every quirk and compromise that came as part of the package was simply worth it. There were more than a few of them.
The Beckham Experiment came out just as Beckham’s stock was at its lowest. His first loan to AC Milan had been badly managed and was regarded as a show of disrespect not only to Beckham’s employers but also to the supporters who welcomed him as he pushed at this new frontier.
That first spell in Serie A was one concession of many. Wahl documented the introduction of the Designated Player rule that made it possible for the Galaxy to sign Beckham more or less directly. The ‘Beckham Rule’ changed MLS recruitment beyond recognition and it was the start of a pattern.
Beckham eventually managed to rebuild bridges but his interaction with team-mates, his influence and demands, his effect on Landon Donovan and the choice of Ruud Gullit as head coach all came under scrutiny. Weighed up against the material impact Beckham had on MLS as a whole, the overlooked negatives certainly warranted debate.
Inter Miami joined MLS in 2020 with Beckham as the club president. Former Argentina and Barcelona coach Tata Martino is in charge of the team and has Sergio Busquets, Luis Suárez and Jordi Alba at his disposal.
But there’s only one reason I answered the door to an Amazon delivery driver decked out from head to toe in Herons clobber in Leicestershire last week, and that reason is 36-year-old World Cup winner, eight-time Ballon d’Or winner and Inter Miami captain Lionel Messi.
Sixteen years after Beckham crossed the Atlantic, Messi-to-MLS was a slicker operation and the desired effects have been achieved in the USA and around the world in very short order. Messi’s popularity alone has made Inter Miami a global marketing phenomenon.
But beneath the surface, there are compromises here too. The Lionel Messi Experiment might be coming off for Messi and Miami, but what might be the consequences of a league that spans a continent bending to the allure of one player?
Messi left Paris Saint-Germain in the summer of 2023 and chose Florida over Saudi Arabia. It was an obvious decision for Inter Miami and MLS: if you can sign Messi to play in a league that needs to grow the sport itself to thrive and is still young in the grand scheme of things, you sign Messi.
Beckham and Miami acquired one of football’s greatest ever players and the attention that comes with him. Studies into American sports fandom reveal a love for a superstar and Messi transcends the game. He is, undeniably, a draw. It isn't lost on Martino that he can still play a bit too.
Look beyond Fort Lauderdale, though, and the situation is less straightforward. Messi in MLS is an unholy clash of competition and commerce almost by definition. It's a direct consequence of otherworldly ability meeting universal fame.
Even in his mid-thirties Messi brings a level of skill to Miami that nobody else on earth can match, and people who don't support the Herons want to watch him. He belongs to everyone. That's where the cracks in the big pink edifice begin to reveal themselves.
Even for Messi, 36 has to be considered the twilight of a football career. He misses matches; that's what veteran players do.
The problem is that Major League Soccer is a seasoned marketing operation – its subsidiary, Soccer United Marketing, operates far beyond the league and has done for decades – and Messi is its unique selling point. Miami's opponents want a piece of it. When he isn't playing, a percentage of the punters aren't getting what they paid for.
Late in the 2023 season, the Herons played Chicago Fire at Soldier Field. The Fire sold 62,000 tickets, more than thrice their season average attendance. At the time of writing, three of the league’s top six attendances in the 2024 season so far have been for Inter Miami away games.
But Messi didn't play against Chicago last October. He wasn't fit. Ticket holders were offered credit by way of recompense, a naked acceptance that Messi is shifting everything attending a match is supposed to be. For most of us, it’s risky by design. Your team might lose and your favourite player might be injured. Tough shit.
Miami's visit north of the border to face Vancouver Whitecaps in May was a similar commercial flashpoint in the early part of the 2024 season. Fans were angry about Messi’s absence and the local authorities weren't slow to make their opinions known. Tickets had been sold on the basis of Messi's presence.
Inter Miami's captain missed the US Open Cup Final in 2023, too. They were beaten at home by Houston Dynamo, and, while it isn’t always treated as such, the Open Cup is one of the world's oldest cup competitions. This time, Messi's absence was criticised more because of signals than substance.
But when Messi was rested for a friendly on Miami's pre-season tour in Hong Kong in February, there was rather more weight behind the dissent. Ticket holders were refunded and the Hong Kong government got involved to express its frustration with the absent Argentine.
Despite these wobbles, the player is and will remain in stratospheric demand. He is Major League Soccer’s Pele, an individual attraction without equal. Football fans in America and Canada want, even need, to see him in the flesh.
Whether the increased attention cultivated by an icon nearing retirement will meaningfully grow MLS in the long-term is another matter. Logic suggests it should; every football supporter starts somewhere and 40,000 new faces showing up in a different city every other week should swell the ranks. In the era of single-player fanaticism, it might not be such a sure thing.
It's been argued that Messi is good enough and famous enough to knock the competitive balance of MLS off kilter. Nobody but Inter Miami would have been able to sign Messi, and nobody but Inter Miami and Messi would be able to make the subsequent additions of Suarez and Alba.
On the other hand, this is football. The best and wealthiest clubs have always had the most pulling power and even now it isn't anything like a guarantee of success. Inter Miami might not win anything.
The real threat to parity is his legacy in the long run. If it sticks for Miami and they continue to grow all over the world even in Messi’s retirement, paying him more than the total salary bill of all but for MLS teams will have been worth it.
Yet even among some Inter Miami supporters, Messi’s impact is seen to have come at a cost beyond cash. The matchday experience has evolved, not least in terms of sheer weight of numbers, and that inevitably changes how a trip to the football feels. The team is more competitive and the commercial side of the club is reaping the benefit of its superstar player, but heart and soul need to count for something too.
Grumbles about Beckham when he first moved to the Galaxy were regarded as reflecting on the league but they were really to do with the way fans and team-mates felt he treated them. Messi’s people are smarter than that, and his potential negative effects are more at a league level. Increasing ticket prices is the first of them. Only time will tell if Miami's gain is also felt by MLS as a whole.
Wahl, tragically, is no longer here to write the definitive dissection of the Lionel Messi Experiment. With each week that passes, it looks more and more like it would have been a fascinating piece of work. Messi can still make football look simple but ensuring that the league and the football community benefit from his presence is anything but.
As for the Amazon driver? He turned out to be a thief.
It's a funny old game.
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I can heartily recommend this interview with Andriy Shevchenko, now President of Ukraine’s FA, by Nick Ames.
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Manchester City’s legal case has power to blow Premier League’s house down (The Observer)
Brilliant Oranje: 50 years on, the game is still in thrall to Total Football (The Guardian)
What happened to the world-class German strikers? (BBC Sport)
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For the Beckham experiment in the US, map to the Del Piero experiment in Australia. Fans flocked to games he was expected to play in. The league became the Del Piero league (and he was in a terrible team). He did a lot for the league but there never seemed to be a plan for after he left.