Miami’s Messi Mania: Ticket Prices Soar, Bars Are Packed

Lionel Messi has ignited South Florida.  

Since coming to the U.S., Messi has lifted the hopes of Inter Miami CF, the worst team in Major League Soccer, dazzling fans with his goal-scoring prowess. His arrival has also sparked a soccer craze in South Florida, boosting business for local bars and restaurants and driving ticket prices to new levels for the league.

Bars and entertainment venues said Messi is creating new soccer fans excited at the prospect of watching the World Cup winner play in the U.S. Winning games with last-second goals has added to the buzz. 

The infatuation with Messi has driven up resale prices for Inter Miami home games. Resale tickets for home games now cost $282 on average, up from $31 prior to Messi’s arrival, according to SeatGeek.

“It’s the vortex of soccer mania here in South Florida,” said Dean Trantalis, mayor of Fort Lauderdale, the home of Inter Miami’s DRV PNK Stadium.

Prison Pals Brewing Co.’s taproom in Oakland Park, located less than 5 miles from DRV PNK Stadium, hosts watch parties and after-parties during home games. The events draw patrons who are natives of Argentina, where Messi is from, as well as other parts of South America and the U.S. 

“This phenomenon of Messi helped this super slow season,” said Juan Pipkin, chief executive of Prison Pals Brewing, which operates tap rooms in Oakland Park, Florida City and Doral. 

South Florida hasn’t seen an athlete of Messi’s caliber since NBA star LeBron James played for the Miami Heat nearly a decade ago.

James, who now plays for the Los Angeles Lakers, has long been a marquee name that has driven up ticket prices, especially last season when basketball fans were clamoring to see him break the all-time scoring record, said Chris Leyden, director of growth marketing at SeatGeek. Kobe Bryant’s retirement season with the Lakers also sent ticket prices soaring, Leyden said. 

This level of excitement for a single player is a big change for Major League Soccer, according to Leyden. Players in leagues like MLS, the National Hockey League, Major League Baseball and the National Football League— Tom Brady’s first season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers being a notable exception—don’t have players that can single-handedly drive resale price increases like Messi, he said.

“This is like the most extreme version of this that I have ever seen,” Leyden said. 

Resale home ticket prices for Inter Miami are now higher than the $251 fans paid on average for an NFL game last season, he said. The average price of Inter Miami’s away tickets is $400, about 59% more than the average NFL game. 

The timing for Inter Miami landing Messi also worked out well, said Adam Budelli, a spokesman for StubHub. Messi was already considered by many to be the greatest soccer player of all time. Then, he capped that off by winning the World Cup with Argentina in December, the greatest prize in international soccer and the only major tournament that had previously eluded him. 

“That’s why we’ve seen a drastic increase in excitement to see a player of that caliber,” Budelli said. 

The buzz has spilled over into fast-growing downtown Fort Lauderdale, said

The downtown population has doubled over the past 10 years to 26,000 residents, Morejon said. There are nearly 50 new developments in the pipeline with 17,000 residential units on the way, she said. Having Messi play just a few miles away has given the city a new way to draw people to the area that doesn’t involve the beach. 

About 30 miles south, in Miami, bars and entertainment venues are also embracing Messi mania. 

“We became a soccer town now,” said Eddie Fuentes, one of the co-owners of Grails Miami, a sports bar located in the city’s Wynwood neighborhood. The bar introduced a line of Messi-inspired drinks and Argentine-style empanadas, and raffled off custom-made Messi sneakers, he said.  

Grails aired Inter Miami games prior to Messi’s arrival, but would only draw a few tables of fans who might not even stay for the whole game, Fuentes said. Now hundreds of people are coming for the Inter Miami watch parties, he said. He even had a packed house to watch Inter Miami introduce him as a player, he said. 

“I went from no one asking about Inter Miami games to having a full restaurant just for him to come out and grab a jersey,” Fuentes said.

Sales for food and beverages have increased fivefold for Inter Miami watch parties since Messi joined the team, Fuentes said. 

People are even stopping in the bar on non-game days to grab a drink after taking a picture of the Messi mural on the side of the restaurant, he added.

Casual fans are showing up dressed in the distinctive pink gear of Inter Miami, said Emi Guerra, co-founder of Breakwater Hospitality Group, which operates restaurants and outdoor venues in South Florida that host Inter Miami watch parties. And they’re actually paying attention to the games, he said.

“They are tuning in every single week to see this guy play,” Guerra said.

Write to Joseph De Avila at [email protected]