Messi is declared athlete of the year: “He has managed to turn the United States into a football country”

Lionel Messi has been crowned once again, in this case with the title of “sportsman of the year” awarded annually by the American magazine Time. “He has managed to do what previously seemed impossible: turn the United States into a soccer country,” the magazine points out as the main argument to support one of the few titles that the Argentine soccer player had left to win.

The article that Time dedicates to him is illustrated with several photographs in which the star appears dressed in the pink uniform of Inter Miami – none of them show Messi with the Argentine national team shirt -, the club he joined in July this year and in which he has already begun to reap titles.

The text does not skimp on qualifiers for “the greatest living player, possibly the best who has ever played in the most popular sport in the world,” and highlights how his presence has attracted thousands to US soccer stadiums, already millions to become spectators of American soccer.

“Messi has brought an unparalleled stimulus to soccer in the US: stadium attendance, prices, merchandising sales and match viewing: his matches strike a chord of religious ‘revival’,” writes Time, which recalls how Thanks to him, stars such as Kim Kardashian or the rapper Fat Joe have attended the stadiums and in turn contributed to increasing the popularity of the sport. “This guy is a cultural icon. He is great among the greats,” Fat Joe tells Time. Time goes so far as to say that Messi has made the United States “a soccer nation,” and he writes it like that, in Spanish, in addition to the English ‘soccer’.

The praise extends to Messi’s character and commitment to his new team: “From the first day, Leo arrives first, and leaves after everyone else. He is the most professional player on the entire team,” David Beckham, owner and current president of Inter, who is credited with the final push for Messi to sign for the club, rejecting more lucrative offers from Saudi Arabia, tells Time.

And regarding the economic impact, this fact is enough: on the day of its debut at Inter, Apple TV added 110,000 new subscribers in just 24 hours to be able to watch the American soccer league through the “MLS Season Pass”, according to data from the Antenna company, something never seen before.

Attendance at the Inter Miami stadium has grown by 40% since Messi’s arrival, and now the average number of spectators is 30,000 per game, although it reached up to 61,124 in a match last October.

Messi’s popularity is impacting other clubs in the same sport: “Now we are entering into negotiations with people with whom it would not have been even remotely possible five years ago,” the president of the Dallas club, Dan Hunt, tells Time.