{"id":72332,"date":"2025-10-24T20:54:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T23:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ubirataonline.com.br\/lionel-messi-just-had-the-best-season-in-mls-history-does-anyone-care-mls\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T20:54:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T23:54:22","slug":"lionel-messi-just-had-the-best-season-in-mls-history-does-anyone-care-mls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ubirataonline.com.br\/en\/lionel-messi-just-had-the-best-season-in-mls-history-does-anyone-care-mls\/","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi just had the best season in MLS history. Does anyone care? | MLS"},"content":{"rendered":"

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O<\/span>K, show of hands. How many of you knew that Lionel Messi \u2013 a global superstar who has committed to spend his next three years<\/a> in the United States \u2013 just completed the best individual season in Major League Soccer history?<\/p>\n

Be honest.<\/p>\n

Most people will be vaguely unsurprised by this news. You\u2019re aware that the greatest soccer player of all time is winding down his career in North America, playing for whichever one has those pink kits that dot the planet like a beautiful toxic slime mold. Context-free highlights drift past the periphery of your consciousness, floating on the algorithm, and you heard a rumor the kids have started calling Messi \u201cbraceman\u201d because he scores two goals every game. Which, yeah, of course he does. He\u2019s Messi.<\/p>\n

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Even among MLS diehards, Messi\u2019s campaign seems oddly underappreciated. He won the Golden Boot and <\/em>tied for most assists despite missing a quarter of the season, setting new records for non-penalty goals and goal contributions along the way. According to American Soccer Analysis\u2019s advanced goals added<\/a> metric, he added twice as much value over the average player as second-place Denis Bouanga and left Carlos Vela\u2019s 2019, the previous best MLS campaign ever, in the dust. In spite of it all, chatter around the league as recently as last month was that maybe, just maybe, San Diego\u2019s Anders Dreyer or Cincinnati\u2019s Evander would be a more deserving MVP.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>messi<\/span> Illustration: John Muller<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Which brings us to the more important question: So what if Messi is tearing up MLS \u2013 does anyone actually give a crud<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Supporters of opposing teams have reasons not to. After the thrill of seeing him in person (or selling that ticket to pay for the rest of the season) wore off, all that was left was dutiful acknowledgment of his greatness and creeping resentment of his intrusion on a niche fandom. The same league that cancelled a fan-favorite podcast<\/a> and replaced writers with AI<\/a> can still find plenty of room in the budget to plaster Messi\u2019s face everywhere, but the competitive balance that used to be a point of pride<\/a> went out the window when one team spent more than double the average wage bill to assemble a Barcelona legends tour.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also plenty of evidence that your average American sports fan isn\u2019t using Messi as a gateway to MLS as much as anticipated. League executives once predicted<\/a> that Messi mania and next year\u2019s World Cup would \u201cdouble our fanbase by 2026, then we double it and double it again.\u201d Instead, average regular season attendance has dipped 5.5% year-on-year as MLS continues to lose ground to European competitions<\/a> in the American soccer boom. On Thursday, MLS boasted that its total weekly viewership for all matches had gone up 29%, but that could just as easily be explained by the increase in streaming and international linear deals the league signed between the 2024 and 2025 seasons.<\/p>\n

Google searches<\/a> for Messi in the United States still trail Cristiano Ronaldo, who plays in Saudi Arabia, and spent the summer lagging behind the WNBA player Caitlin Clark, who has broken into the national sports conversation in a way MLS can only envy.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span> Illustration: John Muller<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yes, the rest of the world still loves Messi. Millions of people watch his Inter Miami highlights and click on his name in headlines. No, they don\u2019t appear to have been converted into rabid MLS aficionados. League commissioner Don Garber offered up some ambiguous numbers<\/a> earlier this year to support the claim that viewership is up \u201calmost 50% compared to last year,\u201d then added<\/a> that it wasn\u2019t \u201cwhere we need to be.\u201d Although Messi\u2019s contract reportedly included a cut of streaming revenue from the MLS Season Pass package on Apple, the league announced this week that it will make playoff games free to all Apple TV subscribers<\/a>, suggesting that model hasn\u2019t quite worked out.<\/p>\n

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