Messi plays for Inter Miami and the Argentina national team, both of which wear Adidas jerseys. "Soon they will announce that Messi's jersey is the company's best-selling product in any sport ," Don Garber said in an interview with The Athletic (UK) on March 15.
Messi not only helped Inter Miami become famous, but also MLS also increased its prestige significantly.
In September 2023, MLS announced that Messi's jersey with the number 10 at Inter Miami had become the league's best-selling jersey in 2023, even though the Argentine had only joined the Miami team about 3 months earlier. In October 2023, the New York Times (USA) reported that Adidas had received nearly 500,000 requests for Messi jerseys from Inter Miami stores and jersey suppliers, right from the first days of news of Messi's arrival in the United States.
Messi’s huge appeal and the revenue from apparel sales, both for Inter Miami and the Argentina national team, have helped MLS gain a significant reputation. Other MLS clubs have also benefited from continued increases in merchandise sales.
The tournament's operators, such as Don Garber, are ambitiously expanding into new markets around the world , especially as they anticipate the trend of world football shifting to North America in the next three years, including hosting major tournaments such as the 2024 Copa America, 2025 Club World Cup and 2026 World Cup.
"We're starting to see that if you do it right, there might be an opportunity to expand some of the markets from Canada and the US to the rest of the world. It says a little bit about us not being afraid to open up new markets, because of the Copa America, Club World Cup and World Cup coming up in North America. We're focusing on that very aggressively," Garber said.
Messi is promoting the new jersey of the Argentina team for Copa America 2024
In December 2023, the kit Messi wore in all matches of the 2022 World Cup, the tournament he won with the Argentina team, was auctioned for up to 7.8 million USD (more than 192 billion VND). This price also became the most expensive sports memorabilia sold in 2023.
Messi's "hot" jersey sales, thanks to his fan appeal, also helped MLS gain great attention and success with a $2.5 billion TV rights deal with Apple over 10 years. In both of these deals, the famous player Messi earned a portion of the revenue from the apparel company's jersey sales and from new subscriptions on the Apple TV platform.
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