Messi reaps the fruits of seeds planted by Pelé and Beckham in US football – 02/21/2024 – Sport

Lockhart Stadium, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in the United States, was sold out for this Wednesday’s clash (21) between Inter Miami and Real Salt Lake, which opens the 2024 MLS (Major League Soccer) season. at 10pm (Brasília time).

The cramped stadium, with a capacity for 21,550 fans, will be the stage where Lionel Messi will begin his first full season in the United States, after leaving France in 2023, when he left Paris Saint-Germain and said goodbye to European football, where he played since 2003.

Although it doesn’t seem big enough to host a player eight times voted the best in the world and the biggest star of the last World Cup, when he led Argentina to their third title in Qatar in 2022, Miami’s home had an audience that represents an important evolution in US soccer.

For almost 50 years, the country has been trying to make “soccer” share the attention of Americans with sports that have been rooted in North American culture for much longer, such as basketball, baseball and, of course, American football.

The plan has already gone through several phases. The most recent stage began with the arrival of Messi, in June last year. In just over six months, the legion of fans that the Argentine is able to attract has shown his ability to change the dynamics of MLS.

In November, almost three months before the opening of the new season, Inter Miami reported that all tickets for the team’s home games in this year’s championship were sold out. There is also a high demand for tickets to his away matches.

Even with the star in the squad, it is quite an achievement in the league, founded just 30 years ago, in 1996, two years after the USA hosted the 1994 World Cup, when Brazil won the fourth.

For MLS executives, Messi reaps the fruits of seeds planted in a past that is very present today, when Pelé arrived in the country in the 1970s to play in the country’s first major league, the NASL (North American Soccer League).

When he arrived, even though he was the best-known athlete in the world, the King needed to be introduced to an audience that barely knew what football was. His presence also contributed to attracting other stars of the time, such as Cruyff, Eusébio and Beckenbauer, awakening the country’s interest in the sport.

“Pelé’s arrival in the 70s put football on the map in the USA”, he tells Sheet Alfonso Mondelo, MLS competition director. “While Pelé was playing, Cosmos games were packed anywhere in the country. That was his great legacy. He was the seed for the young people who started playing in the 1980s.”

Despite being a success, it is necessary to highlight this audience. At that time, there were no specific football stadiums in the USA like there are today. The available pitches were for other sports.

Pelé’s debut for Cosmos, in 1975, for example, resulted in a folkloric story. The game with the Dallas Tornado was played in a stadium that was located under highway overpasses. To disguise how bad and bumpy the field was, green paint was used to paint the lawn.

After the match, the King said that it was his first and last game in the country because he depended on his feet to play and they were full of fungus. That’s when he found out about the trick to make up the field.

Pelé played from 1975 to 1977 in the NASL, of which he was champion in the last year. The league is considered the precursor to professional football in the US, but it went bankrupt in 2018.

In each of the years he played in the competition, the Brazilian helped to improve the average attendance. In his first year there, the general average was 7,642 fans per game — less than half the audience that Inter Miami will have in their duels this year and below the average for the 2023 MLS season, which was 22 thousand.

In 1976, the NASL average rose to 10,295. In the Brazilian’s farewell season, this number reached 13,558.

In addition to the presence in the stadiums, interest from TV channels was also growing. The King’s three seasons in the US were shown on CBS, which broadcast one championship game per week, on Sundays.

Although there is no precise data on the values ​​of broadcasting rights at the time, it is possible to get an idea of ​​the value of football in the country following the World Cup.

In 1970, two businessmen paid US$15,000 (US$122,000 in values ​​corrected by the CPI, a US market index similar to the IPCA — R$604,000 at today’s prices) for the rights to the tournament, but found no broadcaster interested in showing the matches. They then aired the matches on closed-circuit TV at venues such as Madison Square Garden.

For comparison purposes, in 2015, Fox paid US$425 million (US$560 million, or R$2.7 billion) for the rights to the 2026 World Cup, which will host the USA, along with Mexico and Canada.

Before the World Cup, the country will also host this year’s Copa América and the new FIFA Club World Cup in 2025. The Americans also presented a bid to host the Women’s World Cup in 2027 together with Mexico.

There is also a large investment in local football. One example is the recent contract signed between MLS and Apple TV. The platform purchased exclusive rights to the league for ten years, starting in 2023, paying US$2.5 billion (R$12.3 billion), US$250 million (R$1.2 billion) per year.

The amount is almost triple the US$100 million (R$494 million) it previously received. Messi’s signing boosted these values. The Argentine’s annual salary is estimated at US$20 million (R$98 million) per year, but the value does not include the commercial agreements that are part of the package that convinced him to sign with Miami. He will, for example, have a share in the sale of Apple TV subscriptions.

When he played in the USA, Pelé received US$7 million (US$41 million, in corrected values, or R$202.5 million) for a three-year contract. At the time, the value was highlighted on the cover of The New York Times.

The salary of Pelé and other football stars who went to the USA in that decade, however, is cited today as the reason that made the NASL an economically unsustainable league, similar to what recently happened with Chinese football.

To avoid the same problem, MLS established a salary cap for players in its early days. It was only in 2006 that an exception was created, with the DPR rule (designated player rule).

In 2007, the Galaxy announced the hiring of the Englishman in the media using this rule, which would end up better known as “The Beckham Rule” — also used by Miami to now count on Messi. It is estimated that the Englishman earned US$250 million over five years in MLS, of which he was champion in 2011 and 2012.

His impact on the league, however, was even greater. The arrival of the then Galactico Real Madrid player increased the presence of fans in the stadiums. When he joined, the average per league match was 16,000. In the last year of his contract, the number reached 19 thousand, a base that was maintained over the years until the arrival of Messi, from whom a new boom is expected.

For the MLS competition director, “football in the USA has three milestones: Beckham’s effect would not have been as great without Pelé. And Messi’s effect would not be as great without Beckham.”