Nobody is surprised that star striker Lionel Messi is dominating the league in shirt sales as Inter Miami enters the last month of the MLS regular season with a commanding lead atop the rankings.
After missing more than three months to help Argentina win Copa América while also dealing with an ankle injury, Messi made his way back into Miami’s starting lineup on Saturday. However, Messi’s MLS team has been playing well this summer, and three of his teammates—Luis Suárez (ranked second), Sergio Busquets (ranked eleventh), and Jordi Alba (15th)—join him inside the top 15 of the league’s shirt sales list, which was made public on Tuesday. The well-known worldwide quartet has performed at Barcelona in the past.
In his first season in Major League Soccer last year, Messi topped the list. His Miami colleagues Busquets (ranked 13th) and Josef Martínez (ranked 21st) also made it into the top 25. The top five MLS shirt sales this year were completed by Denis Bouanga of LAFC, Luciano Acosta of FC Cincinnati, and Cucho Hernández of the Columbus Crew.
The MLS uniform supplier Adidas and the league’s online retailer Fanatics both gain from the Messi Mania.
Building Blocks
This season, Inter Miami has had tremendous success on the field, but they have also had a setback off it.
The club formally declared in July that it would push back the $350 million, 25,000-seat stadium’s opening date to 2026 by one year. Messi committed to a three-year contract with Miami in 2023, which gave the MLS team the opportunity to promote a new location that would open in 2025 while the Argentine sensation played. By the time the new stadium opens in 2026, Messi will be 38 years old.
Shortly after the previous season concluded in the fall of last year, Miami’s 19,000-seat Chase Stadium saw the sale of all of its 2024 season tickets.
