Did Messi’s Miami move help drive search interest in MLS betting?

Image credit: MLS/Nathan Ray Seebeck/USA Today Sports/Imagn

It’s been more than a year since Lionel Messi’s ground-breaking move to join David Beckham at Inter Miami. While the transfer has undoubtedly proved a commercial success, has it shifted the needle with Major League Soccer (MLS) and betting appetite from a search perspective?

Let’s take a look in this brief yet broad dive into the state of play, 12 months down the line.

When the Argentine captain signed in July 2023 after a turbulent two years at Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), the game truly changed for Inter Miami and the MLS – ticket prices for his debut soared by more than 1,000%, Apple TV+ subscribers grew exponentially and Jorge Mas, Inter Miami’s managing owner, even predicted that Messi would double the club’s value.

Initial hype reflected in general search interest

This wave of excitement carried through to search trends, as Inter Miami’s global searches increased by 1,200% during news of his arrival. Search trends tell us that search interest around terms such as ‘Messi’, ‘MLS Messi’ and ‘MLS’ were at ‘maximum’ interest during the week of his signing. Similar search interest was repeated at the time of his debut on August 26, 2023.

Since then, though, the search appetite alone has largely been peaks and troughs.

Interest in the ‘Messi’ search term alone has had occasional weeks of interest but has largely dropped to a third of its popularity and back to the ‘stable’ levels of his days at Barcelona and PSG. 

Similarly, ‘MLS’ has reverted to a usual base of half the search interest from his week of arrival, while ‘MLS Messi’ has been around one tenth as popular throughout 2024.

Messi hype mirrored in MLS betting appetite, but drop-off also similar

Now it’s becoming evident that after a post-signing wave the search interest has largely returned to the norm, what can be said about betting appetite for the MLS itself?

At least from an organic perspective, it appears the hype surrounding Messi’s arrival in Miami was mirrored in initial additional searches for relevant betting-related terms. According to Ahrefs, the search term ‘MLS betting’ peaked between September and October 2023 far beyond standard seasonality, but has since dropped to several hundred searches per month, in line with yearly expectations:

Similarly, this trend seems to be reflected globally, with Semrush estimating 1,400 monthly searches for the term worldwide consistently since at least as far back as January 2023, with no signs of a sustained increase carrying into 2024.

Of course, there are many reasons around this that aren’t related to Messi, such as range of markets, average bettor knowledge of the specific competition, time zones for engagement, preference to focus on other competitions such as the Premier League, and more. But it does again pose the assumption that there’s been little long-term change from a search point of view.

Butts on seats does not always mean greater betting handle

In contrast, and moving things back closer to the pitch, it seems Messi has undoubtedly helped to draw people to seats as the MLS reported earlier this year that total league attendance was on course to rise by 13% in 2024, compared to last year. 

But again, if 13% more people are engaging with games, you would naturally expect some of that 13% to also contribute to a rise in search appetite for some of the ‘head terms’ we’ve covered, such as ‘MLS’ and ‘Messi,’ by proxy of their interest in the sport.

Overall, it may be slightly too soon to write off interest increasing in the MLS from a search perspective. But it does seem 15 months on that Messi’s impact has been noticed most off the field – and certainly off the web.