Lionel Messi of Inter Miami reacts prior to the match at Nashville SC last Saturday.
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On Thursday, Inter Miami and Lionel Messi made official what had been reported for most of a month, that the world’s greatest living soccer player had agreed to a contract extension that would likely see him finish his career in MLS.
The pact runs through 2028, at which point Messi will be 41 years old. That’s well beyond playing years for most – including Messi’s current Miami and former Barcelona teammates Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba, who recently announced their retirements. But after leading Argentina to a World Cup title at 35 and winning the MLS Golden Boot at 38, it’s certainly possible that Messi continues to be productive throughout the bulk of his new deal.
Yet Messi’s impact on the field is only a small portion of the story. Here’s the five most important takeaways from his new deal:
Miami Freedom Park Momentum
It’s absolutely zero coincidence that the announcement of the extension was held at the new stadium construction site.
Part of the reality of employing a star of Messi’s caliber is that you’re always going to deal with some negative impact on your business when he inevitably completes his playing tenure there. The best you can do is make the timing of the end of that relationship work in your favor.
Make no mistake, failing to extend Messi as Miami was trying to go about the business of selling corporate suites, season tickets and so on for the new, permanent 25,000-seat venue would’ve been devastating to the club’s business endeavors.
Even if Messi’s skills erode far sooner than the completion of the deal and he retires early, itwill be far easier for Miami to absorb after getting their stadium launch right.
The Messi World Cup
The 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar was all about sealing Messi’s competitive legacy with the only trophy that had eluded him at the club or international level. The 2026 World Cup see Messi become its de facto tournament ambassador, especially for the enormous Spanish Speaking Diaspora supporting sides from Spain and The Americas.
Even while maintaining a soft-spoken commercial presence, Messi’s ability to drive commercial investment and fan engagement remains extraordinary. In MLS, his arrival at Inter Miami coincided with a doubling of the club’s valuation from $600 million in 2023 to $1.2 billion in 2025. Meanwhile, the club’s Instagram following has exploded from about 1 million to about 18 million.
It’s almost a guarantee that FIFA and its partners will lean hard into Messi’s semi-permanent presence in Miami, one of 11 American World Cup host sites, in the buildup to the tournament. That could prove particularly valuable amid any any potential negative impacts from American president Donald Trump’s reputation abroad as his administration has saught its own influence over the tournament in multiple ways.
Time For Big Changes?
At a league level, most of the duration of Messi’s first MLS contract has been spent conceptualizing potential big changes, but not enacting them.
From streamlining the complicated MLS salary structure to potentially flipping to a fall-to-spring schedule, the 30,000-foot view suggests a willingness from the office of league commissioner Don Garber enact bold initiatives that bring the league closer to global norms of business and competition. But so far, owners have settled for merely discussing those moves at intervals, rather than acting up on them.
It’s likely that the insurance of having Messi around to draw fans to stadiums and the league’s MLS Season Pass package on Apple TV could provide the fuel needed to enact some of those big switches. If it isn’t, it’s fair to ask whether they’ll ever happen.
More TV Visibility Beyond 2026?
One detail that gets overlooked is that Messi’s arrival in MLS came about a year after the league agreed to its worldwide streaming deal with Apple TV, and smaller lineal TV agreements with Fox in the United States and TSN/RDS in Canada.
Those latter agreements expire after the 2026 season. And with the likelihood of carrying games involving Messi in 2027 and 2028, it feels likely that there will be more willing potential traditional TV partners in the U.S., Canada and beyond, even if the streaming rights don’t come as part of a new package.
That lack of streaming rights was thought to be a big reason ESPN passed on continuing its relationship with MLS after partnering with the league for its first 28 years. It may have also been an influence on Univision discontinuing its relationship with the league (except for the Leagues Cup) as it continued to build out its Vix streaming service.
Not The Same Team
While Messi will be returning for 2026 and beyond, it seems pretty clear the footballing structure around him will look different and decidedly younger. Busquets, 37, and Alba, 36, have already announced their retirements, and the future of Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez, who will be 39 in January, remains unclear.
The only fellow star guaranteed to remain in the fold is the recently arrived box-to-box midfielder Rodrigo de Paul, who at age 31 is far closer to the prime of his career and capable of considerably more from an athletic and ground coverage standpoint.
While Messi’s Miami sides so far have been built around the core of the previous decade’s FC Barcelona squad, it’s possible the future version will come to resemble the current Argentina national team setup, fueled by a generation of younger, in-their-prime talents who give the squad more balance against Messi’s extraordinary technical ability but understandably declining workrate.