{"id":218401,"date":"2026-04-04T06:40:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T06:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/218401\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T06:40:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T06:40:21","slug":"inter-miamis-nu-stadium-born-out-of-a-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/218401\/","title":{"rendered":"Inter Miami’s Nu Stadium “born out of a dream”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s almost surreal,\u201d managing owner Jorge Mas told reporters ahead of welcoming Austin FC<\/a> for Saturday\u2019s inaugural match at Nu Stadium, their brand-new, 26,700-seat soccer-specific venue (7:30 pm ET |\u00a0Apple TV<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 Saturday\u2019s going to be an amazing day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Crowning jewel<\/p>\n

Nu Stadium, and the Miami Freedom Park<\/a> project it anchors, is the culmination of a dream years in the making<\/a> for the Mas brothers and fellow co-owner David Beckham. All three were key players from the beginning, with Beckham exercising the option to establish a new MLS club in South Florida in February 2014.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Inter Miami CF were officially launched four years later, with the league\u2019s 25th club making their debut as an expansion side during the 2020 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Herons called Fort Lauderdale home for the next six years, building a global brand and reputation thanks to the transformational summer 2023 arrival of Lionel Messi<\/a> and a cohort of fellow superstars.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, they\u2019re finally home in Miami proper. And they\u2019re ready to take the next step towards worldwide expansion in their new digs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a stadium that was born out of a dream. Six years ago, we didn\u2019t have a club,\u201d said Mas. \u201cFor us it\u2019s important, and it was always a dream to build a special football stadium. It is a global sport; we\u2019re a global city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI want this to be the home of football in the United States of America.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Messi mania<\/p>\n

Without question, Messi has been Inter Miami\u2019s biggest catalyst for success.<\/p>\n

In his almost three years at the club, the eight-time Ballon d\u2019Or winner has led the Herons to MLS Cup, Supporters\u2019 Shield<\/a> and Leagues Cup<\/a> titles. That’s all while attracting fellow superstars Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba, Luis Su\u00e1rez<\/a> and Rodrigo De Paul<\/a>, among others.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Su\u00e1rez and De Paul remain, but it\u2019s still Messi leading the charge and now chasing a third straight Landon Donovan MLS MVP award.<\/p>\n

Inter Miami made that much clear in the lead-up to Nu Stadium\u2019s opening by announcing the Leo Messi Stand<\/a>, which will span parts of both the upper and lower bowls.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was talking to Leo there about the stadium, the experience, how he felt seeing the Lionel Messi stand when he walks out of the tunnel,\u201d said Mas.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a living player, that\u2019s unheard of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n New era<\/p>\n

As successful as Inter Miami\u2019s journey has been so far, Mas hopes Nu Stadim can catapult the club to even greater heights on both the MLS and global stage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a stadium of what can be\u2026 It\u2019s all a personification of the process,\u201d Mas said. \u201cWe open on April 4; that\u2019ll be an amazing day. The demand for tickets is just wild. We\u2019ll have a significant number of guests here. It\u2019s gonna be a fantastic day, and then we move on.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019m already envisioning what we\u2019re gonna do. Again, it\u2019s about filling our rafters with trophies. That\u2019s what it\u2019s about.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

This sentiment is shared at all levels of the club, especially for Academy-formed players who have witnessed Inter Miami\u2019s evolution from the early days.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, 2019 was our first year in the Academy. That\u2019s when we really started imagining what the club could progress into,\u201d said homegrown forward\u00a0D\u00e1niel Pint\u00e9r<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst, we got our facility, then we got our stadium in Fort Lauderdale. But we always imagined a home in Miami.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Mas, the ultimate dream is for Nu Stadium to leave a profound sporting, cultural and financial legacy in Miami for generations to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpeaking for myself, my brother and David [Beckham], who played a role: this is a gift for my city.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s almost surreal,\u201d managing owner Jorge Mas told reporters ahead of welcoming Austin FC for Saturday\u2019s inaugural match…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[5429,12629,123,125,124,97373,76891,4959],"class_list":{"0":"post-218401","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-inter-miami-cf","9":"tag-match-previews","10":"tag-miami","11":"tag-miami-headlines","12":"tag-miami-news","13":"tag-miavsatx-04-04-2026","14":"tag-priority-match","15":"tag-sendtonews"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}