By: Alexandra Huggins
Edited By: Edu Kenedi
The global influence of football is immeasurable. To utilize Instagram statistics as an easy (although admittedly simplistic) basis for assessing global reach, the two most followed people in the world are football players, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi (with 628 and 502 million followers respectively) and are responsible for 8 out of the 10 most liked Instagram posts of all time. After Ronaldo and Messi, 8 out of the top 10 next most followed athletes on Instagram are football players, and the world’s biggest football teams, Real Madrid and Barcelona (with 155 and 123 million followers respectively), boast around 2x the followers of the NBA account, 5x the NFL account, 6x the biggest NBA team (the Lakers), and 7x the biggest NFL team (the Cowboys). In terms of viewership, the most watched Super Bowl in history was the most recent, with 123.7 million global viewers watching the Chiefs defeat the 49ers. To make the closest comparison to the ”club” teams’ annual tournament, the most recent Champions League final, between Manchester City and Inter Milan, was watched by over 450 million viewers. This is aside from the World Cup, of which American football lacks a national-team equivalent, where the most recent final between Argentina and France in 2022 reached over 1.5 billion viewers worldwide. It would not be a stretch to state that football is the most influential cultural institution in the world.
However, despite football’s international dominance, the American league, Major League Soccer, or the MLS, lacks prominence. Amongst several rankings, the MLS is typically ranked outside of the top ten global leagues, with rankings ranging from 15th to a dismal 55th, beaten out by, of course, the dominant European leagues as well as leagues from Central and South America and Asia. Many observers assess the MLS to be a “retirement league,” where aging superstars come to round out their careers, a label that MLS representatives have vehemently opposed. While not all have definitively ended their careers in the US, many major players have spent several years in the later parts of their career on MLS teams, including David Beckham, Gareth Bale, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Even with these players, the MLS has yet to reach the level of attention or prestige of either its foreign counterparts, with the English Premier League and Spanish La Liga dominating international football, or its domestic rivals, with the NFL and NBA dominating the American sports climate.
As mentioned, the MLS has featured superstars before, all of which have, at least somewhat, brought attention and focus in their own right. But no MLS signing has brought the level of international and domestic scrutiny as one of its most recent. Lionel Messi, the 8 time Ballon D’Or winner and the leader of the reigning Copa America and World Cup winners, among countless other team and individual accolades, has brought unprecedented attention to the MLS in both fan following and sponsor deals after signing with David Beckham’s Inter Miami in 2023. This “Messi-mania” has taken the United States by storm, filling major NFL stadiums, breaking records of jersey sales, and skyrocketing ticket prices and social media followers (Inter Miami, a formerly bottom-table team, now has more followers than any NFL, NHL, or MLB team and all but 3 NBA teams). Messi’s influence has brought a slew of sponsorship deals from major companies, as his deal alone includes partnerships and revenue-sharing agreements with Apple TV and Adidas, among others. Although Messi’s signing is certainly the most visible advancement in the growth of US football, other endeavors will certainly become more visible in coming years. The United States is set to host several major international tournaments for club and country within the next half-decade, with the Copa America scheduled for this summer, the Club World Cup coming in 2025, and World Cup taking place in 2026.
Although MLS representatives claim that Messi’s signing officially erases the label of the MLS as a “retirement league,” the fact remains that Messi, for all his immense skill and visibility, is still 36, very much within the later stages of his career. Similarly to Cristiano Ronaldo and the Saudi Pro League, only time will tell if the MLS is able to maintain the momentum and public focus on their league when their crown jewel is removed from the equation upon Messi’s retirement. Additionally, aside from public and sponsor focus on the league, the status of the MLS on the world stage is still in question. For the MLS to grow to the level of competitiveness and status of its European counterparts, MLS teams will need to be able to attract and retain top young players from around the world, establishing the historical level of success characteristic of Europe’s top leagues and clubs, as well as attracting international focus and fanbases beyond the presence of any one player.
While many American sports leagues seek to spark interest and grow fan bases abroad (with both the NBA and NFL seeking to schedule more international games in coming years), the MLS faces a different issue. While most American sports hope to create global interest, spreading the passion of their American fans to markets and populations abroad, the fervent global passion already exists for football. Within football’s top leagues and teams, the United States is recognized as an untapped source of fan support and revenue. La Liga, the Spanish league home to Real Madrid and Barcelona has announced plans to play future league matches on American soil, and each summer, teams from across Europe come to the United States to play friendlies and exhibition matches in NFL and college football stadiums. The interest and passion exist, but the MLS is tasked with seizing that passion and directing it towards their teams and players. Leo Messi and the upcoming international tournaments have provided the MLS with an immense opportunity; now, they must capitalize on it.