Lionel Messi, the greatest football player of all time, is scheduled to play his first Major League Soccer (MLS) game on Friday, July 21st, at 5 p.m. PDT / 8 p.m. EDT, when his Inter Miami CF squad hosts Cruz Azul in the Leagues Cup. Jorge Mas, the billionaire and managing owner of Inter Miami CF, believes Messi will entice millions of new subscribers to the Apple TV+ streaming service.
Apple has a 10-year deal with Major League Soccer (MLS) as the exclusive provider of every MLS game in the 2023 season through its MLS Season Pass subscription service.
Billionaire Jorge Mas persuaded the world’s biggest soccer star to join a bottom-of-the-barrel team that’s languishing in last place in its league.
Now he needs to make it pay off.Mas’s vision is that the international superstar will lure millions of new subscribers to the Apple TV+ streaming service and attract top players to Major League Soccer. Messi will get a share of the windfall from any increase in international accounts for Apple TV+, while Mas’s Inter Miami soccer club is set to earn millions from increased ticket and merchandise sales. The rest of the league will see a knock-on effect from the hype around Messi, Mas’s theory goes.
“I have very high aspirations for Inter Miami, for MLS and for the sport,” Mas said in an interview Monday, a day after thousands of fans stood in the rain to see Messi don the Florida club’s uniform for the first time. “I’m all in.”
Messi’s contract with Inter Miami runs through 2025, with a base salary of $20 million per year that could reach $60 million with bonuses. Upon retirement, Messi will receive a minority stake in the team.
He also has a deal with Adidas AG and a unique arrangement with Apple TV+ that will benefit him if the streaming service attracts international subscribers. Mas estimates Messi could bring in 2 million overseas accounts over 18 months. “There is no other player in this country that can have the impact globally that Leo Messi can have.”
MacDailyNews Take: The whole idea is 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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[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
so somehow, Apple managed to produce the Zava storyline in Ted Lasso and then make it happen in real life.