TIME Athlete of the Year 2023 | Lionel Messi
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00:00 (crowd chanting)
00:02 - Lionel Messi is Times Athlete of the Year
00:07 over several excellent candidates.
00:10 The reason Messi stands out is because of the football fever
00:15 that he brought to the United States
00:18 and really to the world throughout the year.
00:21 Messi's had better statistical years than 2023,
00:24 but starting late last year,
00:26 he won his first ever World Cup.
00:29 - Story, we cannot stop talking about the World Cup final.
00:32 It lived up to the hype and then some.
00:34 - It was a crowning achievement
00:36 of Lionel Messi's singular career.
00:39 And since that time, everything he's done
00:41 has just been incrementally more important
00:44 and more relevant to sports fans around the world.
00:47 - It's over, the first ever League's Cup champions
00:51 are Lionel Messi and the Divide.
00:54 - So let's just talk about his on-field ability.
00:59 He's like 5'6", 5'7".
01:00 He's not a huge guy, but that hasn't stopped him at all.
01:04 His left foot is magical.
01:05 He'll see passing angles that nobody else sees.
01:07 He'll know where the ball is going before anybody else does.
01:10 He kind of approaches the game like a game of chess,
01:12 always moving and thinking.
01:14 And he's an unselfish player.
01:15 He's always threading the needle with beautiful passes.
01:18 Throughout his career,
01:19 he set the standard of excellence on the field,
01:22 and that's pretty influential.
01:23 There's a lot of kids around the world that play soccer.
01:26 Many of, if not most of them, are trying to play like Messi.
01:29 Messi is the standard.
01:31 - Breaking news, Lionel Messi set to leave PSG
01:35 at the end of the current season.
01:37 - After his contract ran out in Paris Saint-Germain,
01:40 there was all this talk about where Lionel Messi would play.
01:44 Would he stay in Paris?
01:46 Would he go to Barcelona, the club that signed him
01:49 when he was just a 13-year-old boy?
01:51 Would he take more than a billion dollars, reportedly,
01:54 from a team in Saudi Arabia?
01:56 He kind of defied a lot of expectations
01:58 by signing with Inter Miami,
02:01 which at the time was a last place club
02:04 in major league soccer, but more relevantly,
02:07 isn't thought of by world soccer fans
02:10 as one of the top leagues in the world.
02:12 - It's a new era for American soccer.
02:15 - Si, muchacho.
02:16 Nos vemos en Miami.
02:17 - The impact was he's changed forever
02:20 the trajectory of soccer in America,
02:22 which is just one country in the world,
02:24 but also happens to be the biggest commercial sports market
02:27 on the planet.
02:28 - Tickets for Tuesday night's game sold out in minutes.
02:31 - The most expensive major league soccer game ever.
02:35 - When Messi came here and the way he came here,
02:38 he just captivated soccer fans and non-soccer fans alike.
02:42 - Messi!
02:43 - He scored 10 goals in his first seven games
02:46 in Inter Miami, scoring in the final of the League's Cup,
02:49 which helped put the game into penalty kicks
02:51 and give Inter Miami that championship.
02:54 - It is Messi's moment.
02:55 It is Messi's night.
02:57 - He was so big that the media partner of MLS, Apple,
03:02 decided we're gonna give him a cut
03:04 of every additional subscription we get to our service
03:08 because he's here.
03:09 - Messi is here.
03:10 - The day before Messi played his first game in Miami,
03:14 Apple signed about 6,000 new subscribers.
03:18 The day of his debut,
03:19 over 100,000 people signed up for Apple TV+.
03:23 And you just see it.
03:25 Lionel Messi, he comes to New York,
03:27 everybody has a Messi jersey.
03:28 In Miami, everybody just wants to be around him.
03:30 (crowd cheering)
03:33 - Messi!
03:35 Messi!
03:37 - Soccer has grown here.
03:38 It's become more popular.
03:39 European league games are broadcast here.
03:42 Kids talk about their favorite players overseas.
03:44 So it's not to say that soccer in the US
03:47 hasn't been on the upswing,
03:48 but the growth is gonna be accelerated now.
03:51 The interest is gonna be accelerated now.
03:53 All because of one person.
03:55 - Messi!
03:56 (crowd cheering)
03:58 Couldn't have been any other way!
04:03 (upbeat music)
04:05 (upbeat music)