{"id":79254,"date":"2025-12-11T02:03:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T02:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/79254\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T02:03:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T02:03:23","slug":"rsl-facing-unprecedented-ticket-demand-for-inter-miami-game-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/79254\/","title":{"rendered":"RSL facing \u2018unprecedented\u2019 ticket demand for Inter Miami game \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Global soccer superstar Lionel Messi will play his first \u2014 and possibly only \u2014 game in Utah in April when Real Salt Lake hosts Messi\u2019s Inter Miami.<\/p>\n

Real Salt Lake has seen an \u201cunprecedented\u201d demand for tickets, according to Trey Fitz-Gerald, the team\u2019s vice president of communications.<\/p>\n

Roughly 30,000 fans signed up for the \u201cpriority waitlist\u201d to purchase tickets for the April 22 match<\/a> as soon as it was open, per Fitz-Gerald. Half of those came overnight, and 6,000 were submitted in the first 30 minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a unicorn,\u201d Fitz-Gerald said of Messi. \u201cWhen you think of athletes that have transcended their sport, it\u2019s a pretty short list, right? It\u2019s Michael Jordan, it\u2019s Muhammad Ali, it\u2019s Tiger Woods, it\u2019s Wayne Gretzky. I might be showing my age. LeBron James for sure, and Lionel Messi has done that. I think most soccer people believe he\u2019s the greatest of all time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fitz-Gerald acknowledged that some may believe that title belongs to Cristiano Ronaldo, Diego Maradona or Pele.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Messi with everything he\u2019s done with all of his teams across his entire career, it almost defies description, and like I said, it\u2019s transcended the sport,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Messi and Inter Miami are coming off being crowned MLS Cup champions.<\/p>\n

\"\"Inter Miami’s Lionel Messi hoists the trophy alongside teammates after defeating the Vancouver Whitecaps in the MLS Cup final soccer match, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. | Darryl Dyck, The Canadian Press via the Associated Press <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s still playing at an incredibly high level,\u201d Fitz-Gerald said. \u201cHe had a record-setting number of goals and assists in the playoffs this year. It doesn\u2019t feel like he\u2019s slowing down anytime soon.\u201d <\/p>\n

There\u2019s a chance this could be the only time Messi plays in Utah. Inter Miami played its inaugural season in 2020 but has never played Real Salt Lake at America First Field.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re so, so elated to finally welcome him and Miami to Utah for the first time, and who knows? It might end up being the only time because the way, the kind of scheduling formula works we don\u2019t get every Eastern Conference team here in Utah every year, so we just don\u2019t know when or if we\u2019ll see him again,\u201d Fitz-Gerald said.<\/p>\n

Before the priority waitlist opened to the public, RSL reached out to current season ticket members to see if they were interested in purchasing additional tickets. <\/p>\n

They then reached out to previous season ticket members and fans who had previously purchased ticket packages. The waitlist was then opened to the public. <\/p>\n

Due to the current demand, Fitz-Gerald thinks it\u2019s \u201cprobably unlikely\u201d that there will be any single-game tickets available for the general public when they go on sale in January.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shows the appetite for soccer in our community,\u201d Fitz-Gerald said. <\/p>\n

\"\"Inter Miami forward Lionel Messi controls the ball as FC Cincinnati forward Corey Baird defends during the second half of MLS soccer’s Eastern Conference semifinal, Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025, in Cincinnati. | Tanner Pearson, Associated Press <\/p>\n

Messi and Inter Miami\u2019s visit will come less than two months before the U.S. hosts the 2026 FIFA World Cup. <\/p>\n

Real Salt Lake\u2019s very own Diego Luna and Braian Ojeda could be playing in the tournament for the U.S. and Paraguay, respectively.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re in the same group, and they could honestly kick off the World Cup in the first game against each other, which is a crazy possibility,\u201d Fitz-Gerald said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Global soccer superstar Lionel Messi will play his first \u2014 and possibly only \u2014 game in Utah in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124,37302,14243],"class_list":["post-79254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-news-feed-national","tag-real-salt-lake"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79254","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=79254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}