Messi's Inter Miami Is Now MLS' 2nd Most Valuable Team
The first full season with Messi in the United States offers even more upside, including increased stadium attendance and higher average ticket prices. Inter Miami finished selling its entire 2024 season ticket inventory two weeks after the 2023 season concluded. The Argentine forward’s massive popularity has also opened new lines of business for the club, like its 23,000-mile global preseason tour through El Salvador, Dallas, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong and Japan. Inter Miami projects it will surpass $200 million in revenue this year, which would set a league record.
“This is a tsunami, and either you are ready to surf it—or you are beneath it,” Asensi says. “I think we were ready to swim and surf, but mindset-wise, it’s something that we still have to work on.”
Inter Miami now has an unparalleled window to transform its business, but it could close soon. Messi is under contract for only two seasons, with an option for 2026, and the franchise risks regressing financially after his departure. The club will get a boost in 2025 when it moves into its new stadium, Miami Freedom Park, although it still must figure out how to retain as much fan interest, global popularity and brand equity as possible from the Messi era.
Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/justinbirnbaum/2024/02/02/major-league-soccers-most-valuable-teams-2024/?sh=452c8ad83347
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“This is a tsunami, and either you are ready to surf it—or you are beneath it,” Asensi says. “I think we were ready to swim and surf, but mindset-wise, it’s something that we still have to work on.”
Inter Miami now has an unparalleled window to transform its business, but it could close soon. Messi is under contract for only two seasons, with an option for 2026, and the franchise risks regressing financially after his departure. The club will get a boost in 2025 when it moves into its new stadium, Miami Freedom Park, although it still must figure out how to retain as much fan interest, global popularity and brand equity as possible from the Messi era.
Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/justinbirnbaum/2024/02/02/major-league-soccers-most-valuable-teams-2024/?sh=452c8ad83347
Forbes Daily Briefing shares the best of Forbes reporting on wealth, business, entrepreneurship, leadership and more. Tune in every day, seven days a week, to hear a new story. Subscribe here: https://art19.com/shows/forbes-daily-briefing
Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
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SportsTranscript
00:00 Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Monday, February 5th.
00:04 Today on Forbes, Major League Soccer's Most Valuable Teams, 2024.
00:11 In January, as Inter Miami arrived in El Salvador for its first preseason match of 2024, hundreds
00:18 of cheering fans greeted the team's convoy of pink buses, jostling past one another just
00:23 to catch a glimpse of, arguably, the most famous athlete on the planet, Lionel Messi.
00:29 Such an impassioned welcome in a foreign country would have been unimaginable eight months
00:33 ago when Inter Miami, one of the more recent additions to Major League Soccer, was a last-place
00:39 club with little global recognition beyond its minority co-owner David Beckham.
00:44 But that all changed in June, when Messi announced that South Florida would become his next soccer
00:49 home, forever altering the franchise's trajectory.
00:53 Xavier Asensi, Inter Miami's chief business officer, who previously ran commercial operations
00:59 at FC Barcelona for more than a decade, says, quote, "From the European mentality, a club,
01:05 an institution, is always bigger than an individual, because an individual is a part of the story.
01:11 Messi is huge in terms of FC Barcelona's story.
01:14 When you go to Inter Miami, here it's not that the player is bigger than the club, the
01:18 player is bigger than the league."
01:20 Messi's impact was immediate.
01:24 A month after his arrival, Messi led Inter Miami to its first-ever trophy at the inaugural
01:29 Leagues Cup with a dramatic penalty shootout victory.
01:33 Off the field, the eight-time Ballon d'Or winner supercharged the team's business operations,
01:38 with revenue more than doubling to $118 million in 2023, from $56 million in 2022.
01:46 The rapid change in fortune has fueled the club's appreciation.
01:50 Forbes estimates Inter Miami is now the second-most valuable MLS team, worth $1.03 billion after
01:57 a 72 percent bump from a year ago.
02:00 The franchise is the second in league history to achieve a billion-dollar valuation, following
02:05 in the cleated footsteps of LAFC, which did so in 2023, and remains MLS's most valuable
02:11 team at $1.2 billion.
02:14 However, Messi's presence on the roster isn't solely responsible for Inter Miami's $430
02:20 million value increase year over year.
02:23 The club has shrewdly capitalized on its megastar's commercial potential, starting even before
02:28 he arrived.
02:29 During its years-long courtship of Messi, Inter Miami pushed to add escalator clauses
02:33 to its sponsorship agreements that would take effect if it acquired a player of the 36-year-old
02:38 soccer legend's caliber.
02:41 It also lined up several partnerships to expire around Messi's anticipated arrival, including
02:46 its KITT sponsorship with cryptocurrency exchange XBTO.
02:50 Last month, Inter Miami officially announced that Royal Caribbean would take over that
02:54 spot in a deal the largest of its kind in MLS history.
02:59 The first full season with Messi in the United States offers even more upside, including
03:03 increased stadium attendance and higher average ticket prices.
03:07 Inter Miami finished selling its entire 2024 season ticket inventory two weeks after the
03:12 2023 season concluded.
03:15 The Argentine forward's massive popularity has also opened new lines of business for
03:19 the club, like its 23,000-mile global preseason tour through El Salvador, Dallas, Saudi Arabia,
03:26 Hong Kong, and Japan.
03:28 Inter Miami projects it will surpass $200 million in revenue this year, which would
03:32 set a league record.
03:34 Asensi says, "This is a tsunami, and either you were ready to surf it or you were beneath
03:39 it.
03:40 I think we were ready to swim and surf, but mindset-wise, it's something that we still
03:44 have to work on."
03:46 Inter Miami now has an unparalleled window to transform its business, but it could close
03:51 soon.
03:52 Messi is under contract for only two seasons, with an option for 2026, and the franchise
03:57 risks regressing financially after his departure.
04:00 The club will get a boost in 2025 when it moves into its new stadium, Miami Freedom
04:04 Park, although it still must figure out how to retain as much fan interest, global popularity,
04:10 and brand equity as possible from the Messi era.
04:14 To see the top five teams on our list of 29, check out our Forbes Reports video, which
04:19 is out today.
04:20 For full coverage, and to see the whole list, check out Justin Birnbaum's piece on Forbes.com.
04:27 This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.
04:29 Thanks for tuning in.
04:30 [music]