World Cup trophy for Argentina in Qatar,<\/a> Messi still possesses an unmistakable aura, still generates dollars hand over cleat, so to speak.<\/p>\nHe stands just 5-foot-7, 148 pounds but is a titan on Madison Avenue and beyond. Brands salivate over him, fans marvel over him, and, because of his presence, his Major League Soccer team, Inter Miami, finds itself in rarefied valuation air, more than tripling its worth ($1.6 billion) in just three years.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlayers who change the trajectory of a league or a sport come once in a lifetime,\u201d Camilo Durana, chief business officer at Major League Soccer, told The News. \u201cGuys like Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Lionel Messi is one of them. He has changed the direct trajectory of Major League Soccer.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The late Pope Francis is\u00a0represented on a mural together with football player Lionel Messi en the Carlos Mugica neighborhood in Buenos Aires Argentina on April 21, 2025\u00a0(AP\u00a0Photo\/Rodrigo Abd)<\/p>\n
Rodrigo Abd\/AP<\/p>\n
‘Messi is his own economy’<\/p>\n
When Tiger Woods stood at his apex a generation ago, transcending the sport of golf and dominating major championships, then-Washington Post columnist Tony Kornheiser said, \u201cTiger doesn\u2019t just move the sports cultural needle. He IS the needle.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The same metaphor, some experts say, applies to\u00a0Messi.<\/p>\n
\u201cMessi is his own economy,\u201d said Kyle Sheldon, the founder and CEO of Name & Number, a soccer-specific marketing and creative agency whose client roster includes\u00a0MLS, U.S. Soccer, Chelsea FC, Seattle Sounders FC and New York City FC.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe impact he has, I actually don\u2019t think is measurable,\u201d Sheldon said. \u201cI\u2019m a believer that Messi is actually undervalued for the tens of millions that are being invested in him. I don\u2019t know what number wouldn\u2019t be worth an investment in Messi if you\u2019re a brand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Messi\u2019s style of play, seemingly effortless and economical, combined with his stature, not particularly tall or physically imposing, makes him captivating.<\/p>\n
His ability to keep the ball close to his left foot\u00a0\u2014 seemingly attached to his left foot\u00a0\u2014 with small touches, to spot passing lanes before others see them, to rely on timing and precise placement on kicks, to curl kicks into the corners of the goal is otherworldly. His technical skill, decision making, ability to create space that didn\u2019t exist; it\u2019s all part of Messi magic.<\/p>\n
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D-FW has welcomed its share of monumental stars in recent years: The Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes, the Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James and teammate Luka Doncic (sorry, too soon), Taylor Swift, Beyonce, the list goes on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And D-FW has seen firsthand what Messi Mania looks like. He played in a friendly for Argentina against Mexico at AT&T Stadium in 2015 and in a preseason friendly for Inter Miami against FC Dallas at the Cotton Bowl in 2024.<\/p>\n
But the signature performance came on Aug. 6, 2023, at Frisco\u2019s Toyota Stadium, his first appearance against FC Dallas after joining Major League Soccer. Messi scored two goals, including a spectacular free kick in the 85th minute to tie the game at 4. He converted his penalty kick as Miami prevailed in the shootout.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said it then, and I\u2019ll say it again now, this is like seeing Michael Jordan at his very best,\u201d Hunt said, \u201cand he\u2019s still at a top level. Clubs all over the world would sign him in a second if they could. To have a chance to see one of the greatest two soccer players of all time, it\u2019s Messi and Pele, and to have this opportunity is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
And also be a potential witness of history: A goal Monday would make Messi the men’s World Cup all-time scoring leader, alone atop the list.<\/p>\n
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Messi\u2019s sponsorship portfolio includes 22 deals<\/p>\n
Messi\u2019s foray in the U.S. the last few years isn\u2019t quite akin to Brazil\u2019s legendary\u00a0Pele signing with the North American Soccer League\u2019s New York Cosmos in 1975, more of a ceremonial showcase of the icon on U.S. soil.<\/p>\n
Plus, the understanding of and interest in soccer in this country is light years ahead of where it was in the ’70s or even in 1994, the last time a men\u2019s World Cup was played in North America.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then, U.S. sports fans were soccer-curious. Now, they are devouring the World Cup with generational fandom because of 1994.<\/p>\n
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Brands are capitalizing on that emerging popularity\u00a0\u2014 and using Messi as rocket fuel.<\/p>\n
SponsorUnited, which provides data on sponsorship and media partnerships, shared a trove of insights with The News to paint the picture of Messi\u2019s current endorsement portfolio. Ranked by asset count, it includes 22 deals, the most of any MLS player and third among all major professional athletes:<\/p>\n
Anheuser-Busch InBev, Lego Group, Adidas, Mastercard, Lowe\u2019s, Cirque du Soleil, Apple TV, Konami, Mas+ by Messi, Lay\u2019s, Hard Rock Cafe, Stanley 1913, Messi Fragrances, Duracell, Mengniu, Icons Memorabilia, Bitget, MM Winemaker, The Messi Store, Game On Product Group.<\/p>\n
Noelle LeVeaux, the chief marketing officer for the North Texas Organizing Committee, said in April to expect upwards of 80,000 people to travel from Argentina to D-FW for his matches.<\/p>\n
Expect to see a Messi jersey or two\u00a0\u2014 or 300,000 of them\u00a0\u2014 in the area over the next couple weeks. Since joining MLS, Messi\u2019s Inter Miami jersey has not only led league sales, but it has also set the highest single-day jersey sales record across all major North American sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019d be hard-pressed to go to a schoolyard anywhere in this country at this point and not see a Messi jersey,\u201d MLS’s Durana\u00a0said.<\/p>\n
‘Anticipating a moment of magic’<\/p>\n
The breadth and depth of his popularity globally is hard to grasp.<\/p>\n
He has more than a half-billion followers on Instagram (506 million). That\u2019s three times more than LeBron James, almost nine times more than Steph Curry and 45 times more than two-way Japanese Major League Baseball sensation Shohei Ohtani.\u00a0<\/p>\n
SponsorUnited tracked 16 brands across Messi\u2019s social posts, totaling nearly 150 million engagements. Not only is that engagement level the most among major pro sports athletes, the company said, but it counts for more than half of all major pro sports athletes’ engagements combined.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s more, 92.5% of engagement activity among\u00a0MLS players is from Messi alone; 56% of engagement activity among major pro sports athletes, SponsorUnited data showed.<\/p>\n
Messi\u2019s impact on social media has been transformational. Inter Miami\u2019s social following has grown by more than 1,637% since his arrival in the summer of 2023. It has become the most followed North American sports team on TikTok (13.1 million followers).<\/p>\n
Inter Miami now has 43.9 million followers across\u00a0TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, X, and Facebook, more than all U.S. pro sports teams except the Los Angeles Lakers (67.7 million) and Golden State Warriors (63.8 million).<\/p>\n
And Messi, encroaching on 40,\u00a0remains one of the best players on the planet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He led Inter Miami to the club\u2019s first MLS Cup championship in 2025, scoring a goal and two assists and earning the MLS Cup MVP. In 2025, he also was named the MLS MVP, becoming the first player in league history to win the honor in back-to-back seasons. And he was named the 2025 Golden Boot winner, having scored the most goals throughout the regular season.<\/p>\n
\u201cMessi brings with him an electricity unlike anything I\u2019ve ever experienced at any sporting event over the course of my life and 20 years in professional soccer,\u201d Sheldon said. \u201cHe is beloved, and when he receives the ball in any stadium anywhere in the world, there is a collective intake of breath where you are just anticipating a moment of magic.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019ve watched the game for 50 years, you can see something you\u2019ve never seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Messi is ‘an alien’ playing with humans<\/p>\n
Legendary Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon,\u00a0in Paul Tenorio\u2019s book, The\u00a0Messi Effect, put it this way: \u201cMessi is an alien that dedicates himself to playing with humans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inter Miami\u2019s clandestine courtship of Messi dates back to September 2019, according to the book, when a quartet of individuals, including David Beckham, flew to Barcelona to meet with Jorge Messi, Lionel\u2019s influential father.<\/p>\n
Following the meeting, the Inter Miami group flew their private jet to Paris, where they dined at\u00a0Chez l\u2019Ami Louis and buzzed with the energy knowing they were on the precipice of a blockbuster, of dramatically reshaping U.S. soccer.<\/p>\n
Since he joined Inter Miami in 2023, MLS told The News that Messi\u2019s impact has been \u201cimmeasurable.\u201d Asked to quantify that impact, MLS spent a week compiling a treasure trove of metrics and data for The News.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was the product, in many ways, to grow the audience to tertiary fans or international fans who really weren\u2019t diehard fans of MLS,\u201d Bob Lynch, founder and CEO of SponsorUnited, told The News. \u201cYou essentially had a marketing arm in the form of Apple, Major League Soccer, U.S. Soccer, sort of all playing a part within that to make sure he is leveraged to the hilt in many ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
In what can be attributed to the coming World Cup and to a litany of emerging stars\u00a0\u2014 Messi chief among them\u00a0\u2014 the league is averaging 7.9 million live match viewers per week across streaming and linear platforms this season, an increase of 62% year-over-year from 2025.\u00a0MLS declined to release viewership data for individual matches.<\/p>\n
But consider Messi’ Inter Miami team, which had an estimated $600 million valuation before he arrived in mid-2023. Now the franchise leads all MLS clubs at $1.6 billion, which is ranked No. 14 on CNBC\u2019s top 30 most valuable soccer clubs in the world. The list features seven\u00a0MLS clubs as part of the top 30. It lists Inter Miami\u2019s 2025 revenue as $215 million.<\/p>\n
Lynch said Inter Miami operates like an NFL team in terms of sponsorship revenue and could see, within five years, generating more than $100 million in sponsorship revenue annually.<\/p>\n
In 2022, the year before Messi arrived, Inter Miami generated $18 million in sponsorship revenue, Lynch said, ranking 15th in the league. In 2025, the club generated more than three times that\u00a0\u2014 $61 million in sponsorship revenue. That is tops in MLS and more than double the average sponsorship revenue for an\u00a0MLS team.<\/p>\n
In fact, Inter Miami last year would rank among the top 10 if it were an NBA team.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very impressive given how short a period of time they\u2019ve been able to capture the market,\u201d Lynch said. \u201cIt opens markets to them that they couldn\u2019t historically be doing business in. Messi allows them to talk to global companies.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Lionel Messi reacts during Argentina’s win in the 2022 World Cup final against France.<\/p>\n
Yukihito Taguchi, USA TODAY Spor<\/p>\n
‘The pinnacle of watching soccer’<\/p>\n
Fans can\u2019t get enough of him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe came to win, he didn\u2019t come to retire, and he\u2019s been intense every step of the way,\u201d MLS\u2019s Durana\u00a0said. \u201cYou probably noticed in some of the MLS regular season games, he is never subbed off. He wants to play the 90 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
So far this\u00a0MLS season, three matches featuring Messi and Inter Miami have surpassed 72,000 fans, each ranking among the top 10 largest crowds in league history. Five clubs have set new single-match attendance records in 2026, all of which have included\u00a0Messi and Inter Miami.<\/p>\n
A Colorado Rapids’ attendance record of 75,673 filled Empower Field at Mile High in Denver in April. A crowd of 75,673 filled the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in February, a LAFC home attendance record. And 72,026 filled Baltimore\u2019s M&T Bank Stadium in March.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sheldon, the sponsorship expert, said filling those stadiums for Messi at bigger venues \u201cmakes their entire year\u201d revenue-wise.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are teams that some of whom are only generating $15 to $25 million a year, and those games can be a gate of seven to $10 million for that single game,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Turn on a World Cup match and you\u2019re likely to catch a Messi commercial, although he graces it more with his presence than his words.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think about seeing him in any commercial spot, he very rarely speaks at all, and if he does, it\u2019s maybe a line, and it\u2019s the case that just his presence alone is worth tens of millions of dollars to any brand,\u201d Sheldon said. \u201cIt\u2019s a combination of incredible ability on the field, doing things that no one has ever seen, a little aura of mystery around him, and really an image that is pretty squeaky clean.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sixty-two years after the Beatles came to Dallas-Fort Worth, here comes a one-man showstopper, performing twice, to be savored for generations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is greatness at the end of its run, and there will not be another one like him ever,\u201d Hunt said. \u201cThere will be great players that are names that will forever be recognized in sports, but this is the very pinnacle of watching soccer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Argentina’s Lionel Messi celebrates with the trophy in front of fans after winning the World Cup final soccer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[3691,40502,150,152,151,121866,73992,73993],"class_list":["post-341670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-2026-world-cup","tag-argentina","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news","tag-dan-hunt","tag-inter-miami","tag-lionel-messi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}