For @nymag, I wrote about the USMNT, my beloved forever lost cause. https://t.co/R0PqUDDjnd
— Will Leitch (@williamfleitch) June 25, 2024
Will Leitch, at NYMag — “The U.S. Men’s Soccer Team Is Excellent. Does Anyone Care?”:
Last Thursday, my soccer-obsessed 10-year-old son and I sat in Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta and witnessed 70,000 people humming the Argentine national anthem together. This was just before the first game of the Copa América, the South American soccer tournament hosted this year by the United States, and almost everyone in the stands wore the national jersey of reigning World Cup champions Argentina. The true attraction, of course, was Lionel Messi, the most famous athlete in the world. That a crowd this massive could gather in Georgia to cheer him on may have once been surprising, but certainly isn’t any longer. Last year, SSRS, a research firm that’s been surveying Americans for three decades, found that the most popular athlete in this country was not LeBron James, Tom Brady, or Stephen Curry, but Messi. Some portion of the crowd was surely singing along to the anthem in what must have been a profoundly moving moment for any Argentinian in attendance. But most of us were just humming along. We didn’t know the words. We didn’t speak the language. We were just there to see Messi.
This week, the United States men’s national team (USMNT) will play its second Copa América match, also in Atlanta. I’ll be attending that as well, and let me tell you: Tickets are a lot cheaper. This is partly understandable: The U.S. is playing Panama, not Messi and Argentina, after all. But as someone who attended the last game the USMNT played in Atlanta, a miserable Gold Cup loss in 2015 to Jamaica at the since-demolished Georgia Dome, the lack of anticipation for the U.S. men’s national team playing in Atlanta — a city that has, in the years since that Gold Cup loss, launched a highly successful, championship-winning MLS team that regularly plays some of the most well-attended soccer games on earth — is palpable. Eight years ago, the Georgia Dome was packed with maniacs dressed up like Benjamin Franklin and wearing T-shirts with bald eagles on them; this week, I can’t find anyone around here who even knows the team is playing…
JPL
Good try
NotMax
Not really.
SATSQ.
Bill
However excellent they are, they lost to Panama in the match he was planning to attend
Martin
Partially thank Apple for Messi showing up. Apple bought the 10 year worldwide exclusive rights to broadcast MLS. Not exactly a huge draw, relative to other leagues. Beckham is co-owner of Miami and somehow he and Apple get to talking, that MLS needs a big star, something Beckham appreciates as he was once that big star. Not sure which names are considered, but Beckham makes an overture to Messi to come to Miami. Now, Saudi Arabia offered Messi $1.6B to play there for 3 years, which, good christ… so this is going to take some doing.
Inter Miami cannot put up that kind of number. So the deal works roughly like this. Messi gets $54M/yr in salary which is 7x the next highest paid player. He gets an option to buy ownership stake in the club (believed to be 35%) when he retires presumably optioned to the valuation of the club when he joined. The value of the club has increased $500M since he joined. Ticket prices for Miami games have increased 10x. If he exercises the option, he’d pay $150M for the 35% stake based on the valuation when he joined, which would be valued at least double that amount. The revenue growth to the club may also be discounting his buy-in stake letting him buy in for less.
Additionally Apple has added over a million subscribers to their season pass at $100/yr since signing Messi. Half of all subs goes back to MLS, and Messi gets a share of all subs added after signing which is expected to roughly match his salary when all is said and done. So he doesn’t get half a bil a year like SA was offering, but he’s probably getting $100M+ a year, and a sizable stake in the club now worth probably $400M when he retires along with all the income that will throw off if this success holds. And he’s got an American audience rather than a Saudi Arabian one which carries a lot of other benefits. You can see Apple likely producing a biopic on him for their service, that’s almost a given.
But it’s a bit embarrassing watching a match with him. He’s ridiculously better than the teams he’s usually up against. MLS needs to do a lot of recruiting. Maybe the increased interest will lift the whole league. That’s the idea, at least.
lurker
always up for soccer/football talk, but I rarely get a chance to read a thread in real time. Messi is managing to change MLS in a good way, but they have a long way to go. I have a kid keeping me up to date on results in the Copa America and in the Euro tourney as well.
Also there is coaching and refereeing to be done here and there …
raven
I know Will and he is a wonderful writer. I’ve been watching Copa and Euro and I still don’t know diddly shit about soccer! Years ago Amir had me buy “Inverting the Pyramid” to help me but it didn’t!
O. Felix Culpa
@raven: Amir is missed. He was such a wonderful voice on this blog.
JML
That Panama game was rough. Very cynical match from Panama; got them the win, but very ugly to watch. The red card late was one of the dirtiest plays I’ve seen in international soccer: no attempt to play the ball, no concern whether he might injure the other player, just a brutal play. And that’s how they closed out the game, hacking down the US players any time they started an attack. Kinda gross.
Weah not being able to keep it together and getting tossed for responding to provocation was pretty bad for such an experienced player. But that was the game Panama wanted to play: very physical, very chippy, try to make it a foul-fest and snarl up the game. Yuck.
Fox’s coverage of both the Euros and Copa America is pretty bad. Their studio team is dreadful: Rob Stone is a bland nothing, Dempsey has mostly been a corpse, Carli Lloyd has been boring and dumb. Lalas almost looks ok in comparison, but he’s a cartoon. The Euros crew hasn’t been much better. Darke and Donovan have potential calling games, but if that’s your ceiling…oof. It’s such a downgrade compared to USA/Peacock’s Premier League coverage: Rebecca Lowe, the Two Robbies, Tim Howard, etc are all so much more superior it’s shocking. They are so much more knowledgeable, insightful, and interesting! Lowe makes the Fox coverage look like public access she’s so much better.
WeimarGerman
The truly sad thing here is while the US squad is very talented they are undone by horrible leadership at the top.
Last year after the mess with Gio and his helicopter parents US Soccer could have moved on but the former players who run US Soccer chose to rehire Berhalter.
Jesse Marsch wanted the job. His resume includes coaching in the top league in the world but that wasn’t good enough so now we’re stuck with mediocrity.
It just seems like US Soccer won’t move on from the Landon Donovan era to truly grow into a powerful squad.
Hire a foreign excellent coach.
3letterjon
The US Men’s Team is good, but never shows up with any scoring when it actually could matter. They’re like Minnesota pro sports teams: consistently good enough to reach the playoffs but also consistently over their heads enough to look like they don’t belong in the playoffs.
“Someday that may change”—Me, for decades