Lionel Messi celebrates his second goal during Honduras v Argentina at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami on September 23, 2022.
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It’s been three days since the death of football legend Lionel Messi. shocked the soccer world After parting ways with Paris Saint-Germain, he announced a move to MLS club Inter Miami FC, and ticket prices across the league have already skyrocketed.
Sales for Inter Miami’s game, which starts in July, have increased nearly 28-fold since the announcement, according to secondary ticket marketplace StubHub.
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Matches from July 2023 onwards have already sold as many tickets as the entire 2022 season, compared to this time last year, according to ticket companies.
Widely regarded as one of the greatest footballers of all time and last year’s World Cup winner, Messi doesn’t come cheap.
The average ticket price on StubHub for the David Beckham-owned team has jumped 4.5 times since the news broke, from $24.52 to $124.51.
Another secondary ticketing site, Vivid Seat, reported that the average admission price for a League’s Cup match between Cruz Azul and Inter Miami in the Mexican League jumped 1,021%. On June 4th, the ticket cost $122, but six days later the same ticket cost him $1,413.
In just a few days, Inter Miami went from being the 7th-grossing team of the 2023 season to the 4th-highest-grossing team on StubHub.
“Supply is limited,” sports business analyst Joe Pompliano told CNBC.Last order. ”
“If you look at a stadium in Miami, it only has 18,000 seats. [where Messi spent most of his career], has 100,000 seats. There is a fundamental imbalance in the supply and demand relationship that we are seeing,” he added.
All this for the sitting team last place He is in the MLS Eastern Conference and is currently looking for a new coach. Fired third-year coach Phil Neville.
Miami isn’t the only city on the rise. Messi’s future rivals are also on the rise.
“Messi will be a player to watch for football fans across the country, attracting fans to away games in the same way that big NFL and NBA stars do,” StubHub spokesman Adam Budelli said. rice field.
Messi and Inter Miami are scheduled to visit LAFC at SoFi Stadium on September 3. Sales for the match moved up from the 15th highest-grossing event of the season to second. And this match could easily become the #1 event. LAFC season, StubHub data shows.
It’s not just ticket sales that are doing well in Miami. Goods are also coming out one after another.
Fanatics won’t start printing Messi Inter Miami FC kits until the deal is finalized, but fans have already scooped up a ton of team gear.
More Inter Miami merchandise has been sold since Wednesday than in the past two months combined, according to the digital sports platform.
Since Wednesday, Inter Miami have been the top five-grossing teams across sports across the Fanatics network.
Meanwhile, Inter Miami are gearing up for a future global audience.
According to Josh Garben, a trademark attorney at Garben Law Firm, the team said: submitted an application On June 5, the team trademarks the phrase “LIBERTAD PARA SOÑAR”, the Spanish translation of the team’s slogan “Freedom to Dream”.
