Lionel Messi’s Tremendous Impact On Inter Miami’s Revenue, Sporting Events

Lionel Messi’s second season with Inter Miami kicked off yesterday night, and yet he’s already had a huge impact on the club despite only making 14 appearances last year.

Inter Miami Valuation

• 2023: $600 million
• 2024: $1.03 billion (+72%)

That means Inter Miami is now more valuable than Premier League clubs like West Ham United, Everton, Newcastle United, and Aston Villa.

Inter Miami also recently signed a stadium naming rights deal with JP Morgan Chase. They completed a preseason tour with stops in El Salvador, Dallas, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, and Japan, covering 23,000 miles over just three weeks. And the craziest stat might be that Inter Miami now expects to do over $200 million in revenue this year.

Inter Miami Annual Revenue

• 2022: $56 million
• 2024 projected.: $200 million (+257%)

Crossing $200 million in revenue would be an all-time MLS record, and others are benefitting, too.

Lionel Messi helped drive over 110,000 new MLS Season Pass sign-ups for Apple on the day of his first game, and his jersey has been on backorder for months.

This growth didn’t come cheap for Inter Miami and MLS.

Messi is reportedly getting:

• $20M+ annually from Inter Miami
• An option to purchase equity in the club
• Revenue share from new MLS/Apple TV subs
• Profit-sharing from Adidas based on shirt sales

Still, the contract has unquestionably been worth it so far, even with Messi getting hurt at the end of last season and Inter Miami missing the playoffs.

The team has since added Messi’s former teammate, Luis Suarez, and they are currently favoured to win the MLS Cup.

So it’ll be interesting to see what happens in year 2.

But regardless, the numbers are up, and Inter Miami is now one of the world’s 20 most valuable soccer clubs.

[Source: Forbes]