Why is Apple reportedly paying for part of Lionel Messi’s unprecedented, generational, and, frankly, cataclysmic, deal to come play for Major League Soccer club Inter Miami in the U.S.? Start with the fact that, with “MLS Season Pass,” Apple TV+ streams all MLS soccer games and follow the money from there.
The deal, unique in its structure, raises interesting questions about revenue splits for superstar athletes and the cascading impact on media rights negotiations.
According to Sportico, Messi’s 2½-year deal with Inter Miami is “worth up to $150 million total from his salary, signing bonus, and equity in the team.”
In addition, revenue-sharing agreements with Adidas, Apple and others were being negotiated.
While the multimillion-dollar salary side of the contract is stale news in modern soccer, the revenue-sharing agreements with league partners offer something new. One industry expert called the Apple part of the deal “unprecedented.” Another termed it “unusual.”
“That deal has never been given to anybody in baseball, basketball, football, and so it’s very unique,” said Irwin Kishner, co-chair of the Sports Law Group. “It’s a generational-type thing, and it’s hard to think if you would ever see anything comparable.”
ESPN confirmed that part of the ongoing discussion is a cut of revenue from new subscribers to Apple TV’s MLS Season Pass streaming service.
Apple currently holds exclusive, worldwide rights for every MLS game, and the season pass also features both an English and Spanish broadcast crew. “This [Messi’s arrival] is the sort of thing that will get them noticed and expand their international reach,” said Ed Desser, president of Desser Media Inc. “That is the kind of thing that’s particularly interesting for a global company like Apple.”
A similar profit split — reminiscent of the Nike-Michael Jordan deal over Air Jordan — is said to be in discussion with Adidas, the official supplier of the league and a longtime sponsor of the player himself.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s precisely these types of ideas that are certifiably genius.
Cook should consider bidding for and winning NFL Sunday Ticket away from DirecTV, buying rights to Premiere League and La Liga games, etc. and making them Apple TV exclusives. Go directly to the sports leagues with boatloads of cash. — MacDailyNews, May 6, 2014
It cannot be overstated how huge Messi in the MLS will be for soccer in America.
As we wrote in early June of the pending deal:
[This is] multiple times bigger than David Beckham joining LA Galaxy in 2007. (As part of his deal, Beckham received the option to purchase an MLS expansion team for $25 million after he finished his playing career, which he did: Inter Miami.)
Messi to Inter Miami [will] be an immeasurable boon to MLS, Apple TV+, MLS Season Pass, football (soccer) in America, and, of course, Inter Miami (currently dead last in the MLS Eastern Conference; funnily enough, the same spot LA Galaxy currently occupies in the Western Conference. It seems as if all of the stars are somehow aligned).
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Is it just me or do athletes get paid and idolized far more than they are worth? My gawd…they just play games.
New to capitalism, are you? You want a Ministry of Financial Reward to set the income charts?
Funny. I’m merely saying that celebrities are often times idiots. They just happen to be good at putting a ball in a hoop or pretending to be someone else in front of a camera. They are not more important than any one else.
The world is backwards….
They’re not getting paid because they play games, they’re getting paid because people are willing to pay good money to watch them. It could be knitting or crocheting instead of kicking a ball. What they do is not the important part.
Athletes and entertainers pay is usually directly proportional to the money they bring in for their owners/corporate partners.
If you want to talk about people who get “paid and idolized far more than they are worth” think CEOs, hedge fund managers and others in the world of finance who skim off a slice of transactions while providing limited (or no) actual utility, and/or command massive salary packages that often have no relation to a company’s actual performance, or — in the case of acquisitions built solely on debt — while they’re actively contributing to the company’s ultimate demise.
Add musicians, artists, actors, etc to the list. “Talented” criminals do pretty well too. People get paid proportionally to what “buyers” will pay. The simple and, seemingly inexplicable, way of economics (and humans).