With Lionel Messi Coming, MLS TV Deal Feels Like Missed Opportunity

No one involved in Major League Soccer would be naive enough to suggest Lionel Messi’s impending arrival at Inter Miami represents anything other than a big-time coup for the league.

While MLS has enjoyed plenty of star turns, Messi is quite obviously on his own level, recognized near universally as the greatest player of his generation and in the conversation for the greatest of all time. His current popularity is nearly unparalleled in the soccer world, and while he’s older than some starts making their MLS landing at age 36, he’s also only months removed from his long-sought signature accomplishment — helping Argentina win the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

However, if you track the league closely, and in particular its sponsorship and media agreements, it’s hard not to view the news — which Messi himself first announced last week — and wonder what might have been with timing that was just a little bit different. In particular, it leaves MLS’ 10-year, $2.5 billion worldwide streaming deal with Apple TV looking more like a missed opportunity for the league than at any previous point since it was announced about a year ago.

This space suggested last spring that MLS had been searching for a new rights agreement at a difficult time, and that maybe the best course of action might be to strike a very short-term deal — along the lines of one or two years — to be able to re-negotiate a longer deal at a better moment. Perhaps that was always unlikely, given the pressure that appeared to be on commissioner Don Garber to demonstrate revenue growth to his club owners.

But imagine if the league had taken that course. Now they’d be negotiating a longer term deal — perhaps beginning in 2025 — with the leverage of having the most accomplished and recognizable active soccer player suiting up every week.

Instead, MLS accepted Apple’s offer of $250 million annually for the right to stream every league match worldwide, a sum that received very mixed reviews given that the new agreement also saddled the league with production costs it hadn’t handled before. In retrospect, what Apple paid suddenly feels like a steal in the short term. And if reports from The Athletic are true, there might even be a possibility that Apple reaps the subscription and advertising benefits of the Messi era, then walks away if those numbers drop after the Argentine leaves and the 2026 FIFA World Cup — to be hosted in the United States, Canada and Mexico — passes.

The league will point to the feature of its agreement that will see it share a portion of Apple TV’s MLS Season Pass subscription revenues if subscriptions pass a certain threshold. Those are numbers we don’t know, though.

Upon striking its deal with Apple TV, Garber also made sure to note the league was still holding conversations with lineal broadcast partners about non-exclusive rights smaller selection of games. While it eventually struck a new four-year agreement with Fox, ESPN left the fold for the first time since the league’s inception. Spanish-language partner Univision remained involved only in the new Leagues Cup, which will pit MLS teams and LigaMX teams against each other beginning in late July.

It feels almost certain that those networks would’ve stayed on as larger participants had they known Messi would be part of the deal. It’s unclear whether the terms of the agreement with Fox would allow those other networks to work their way back in before the four-year term runs out.

If not, the next time MLS will have the chance to negotiate with those American broadcasters and others will come either after Messi’s age 39 season, or perhaps already after he moves on or retires. To whatever extent he will remain a pull, it won’t be nearly as strong as it is now.

Much of this is bad luck and not the league’s fault. Miami and MLS have shown interest in Messi for years, and Messi might have reciprocated sooner if he had already won a World Cup prior to last December in Qatar.

While he helped Paris St. Germain to consecutive league titles in two years with the French giants, there’s always been a hint of unease to his time there. This is purely speculation, but if he hadn’t felt the need to remain close to the highest level of the club game while he chased that illusive Jules Rimet Trophy, maybe he comes to South Florida a lot sooner.

That’s a hypothetical. The reality is that Messi is coming now. And while MLS is right to welcome him with open arms, beneath all the celebrations and ceremony may be the sense this could’ve been an even bigger boost for the league with better timing.