14 September 26
Circular Tug-of-War
I just finished reading The Messi Effect: How the Global Legend Changed the Future of American Soccer by Paul Tenorio. This is a look at the impact of the arrival of Lionel Messi at the Major League Soccer (MLS) club Inter Miami CF in July 2023. Inter Miami is a pretty new expansion club, having played its first match in February 2020. Inter Miami’s owners talked the legendary player into joining their club after a stint at Paris-Saint Germain, and his arrival catapulted their club into the stratosphere. Inter Miami Messi jerseys outsold all others for a while. Every match the club played was packed with fans wanting to see the superstar.
MLS true to form didn’t and doesn’t know what to make of all this. They modelled their ownership structure on the National Football League (NFL), with their commissioner for the past 27 years, Don Garber, having previously been an NFL executive. Competitive balance among teams has been an important principle for MLS, as is the case in NFL. Basically my impression of MLS is that it doesn’t know which way it wants to go, or rather the thirty different ownership groups are tugging in different directions. The arrival of Messi was one watershed moment in the history of the league. The 2026 World Cup being held in the United States was another watershed moment. Can the league take advantage of the attention that soccer has gotten here this past summer? Things move slowly with MLS, and nothing will change until at least 2027. The first big change will be aligning the MLS season with the late summer to late spring schedule of most other leagues globally, so as to participate more easily in other leagues’ transfer window markets.
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