As the WNBA’s Caitlin Clark era begins, what can the league can learn from Lionel Messi’s arrival in MLS

The American professional sports scene has no shortage of stars, but only last year it inherited two potentially revolutionary athletes: Lionel Messi and Caitlin Clark.

It may not be an obvious comparison at first, as Clark is a college sensation who is about to begin her professional career with the WNBA’s Indiana Fever, while Messi has been soccer’s biggest star for nearly two decades and is making one of his last career break in MLS with Inter Miami. The Messi and Clark effects speak for themselves – both have brought more fan and media attention to their respective new leagues, sponsorships and ticket revenues and carry the long-term hopes of those leagues on their shoulders.

Both Messi and Clark are being touted as transformational figures for MLS and the WNBA, two leagues that have been eager to carve out a bigger place in North America’s congested sporting landscape for nearly three decades. MLS played its first game in 1996, while the WNBA did so a year later, and while the leagues’ growth has rarely correlated, they fascinatingly arrived at the same point at the same time – and may have lessons to learn from each other. . the process as they hope the stars they place front and center will leave lasting impacts.

“What we talked about in the case of Caitlin Clark and Leo Messi is that they are not among the most popular athletes in their sport – they are, by far, the most popular athletes in their sport,” said Scott Robson, the program’s academic director. in sports management at Columbia University. “As a transcendent athlete, you have the ability to really elevate the entire sport and take it to another level of awareness.”

The Messi effect so far

Messi managed to disrupt the busy news cycle last July when he signed with Inter Miami and won over the American public like few other football players have. Miami obviously reaped the rewards of his arrival, becoming the third most followed American sports team on social media and filling the stadium at home and away. They are far from the only ones enjoying strong returns at the start of the Messi era.

MLS is gaining more and more relevance on social media, according to league data. It added 5.4 million social media followers ahead of the MLS Cup final in December – six times the increase seen in 2022 – and most of them on TikTok and Instagram at 2.2 million and 2 million respectively. Social media engagement increased 200% for the 2024 season, while mentions of MLS clubs increased 15% and traffic to the league’s website grew 102% year over year.

The league’s sponsorship revenue is also up 17% this year, while club sponsorship revenue is up 15% and MLS Canada’s is up 44%. For individual clubs, 24 of the 29 MLS teams said they were ahead in the pace of season ticket sales ahead of the 2024 season compared to the previous year, with ticket revenue increasing 25%. Time will ultimately tell whether Messi’s experience catapults MLS to new levels of popularity, but these are strong initial returns that allow clubs to sell the public on the stadium experience – DC United, for example, estimates that 60% of people who attend a match will likely return, by Sportico.

Messi’s arrival is also closely linked to MLS’ 10-year broadcast deal with Apple, which began last year. The streamer has an almost exclusive global agreement to broadcast games, a first for Apple and a unique bet for a league the size of MLS in one of its main sources of revenue. The deal now includes a revenue-sharing element with Messi, which makes an unprecedented deal like this one worth paying attention to. The streamer had an immediate effect on Messi’s arrival, with More than 110,000 people subscribed to the MLS Season Pass on Apple TV+ before its first game.

Again, there are early signs of positivity, but when it comes to key performance indicators during the Messi era of MLS, the Apple deal remains a big question mark as it is the first of its kind. Neither the league nor Apple regularly releases viewership or subscriber figures, meaning it remains difficult to gauge whether this new element of the mostly paywalled Messi experience has brought new fans to MLS.

“To continue to build on the momentum in both leagues with these two stars, there will need to be a solid plan that can be sustainable and one of the things that is needed is a widespread and populous rollout of it. ,” said Ketra Armstrong, a sports management professor at the University of Michigan. “If you have to pay to go to certain places, only die-hard fans will most likely be willing to give up their resources to do so. To get more attention, I think they need a more national broadcast. more regularly.”

And for more WNBA, don’t miss the games and season-long coverage on CBS, CBS Sports NetworkIt is Paramount+ from early Tuesday until the finals.

Lessons for the WNBA

Clark’s arrival in the WNBA is expected to inspire an immediate response similar to Messi’s in MLS, particularly packed stadiums for the Fever’s home and away games – the Connecticut Sun have already sold out their home opener against Clark’s new team. Viewership numbers could also increase if numbers from this year’s WNBA Draft, which averaged 2.45 million viewers on ESPN, are anything to go by. These numbers are also expected to be much more available than MLS’s on Apple, considering the WNBA primarily partners with more traditional media companies like Disney, CBS, and Scripps.

The Fever’s new recruit also arrives at an opportune time for the WNBA. The league is seeking a new broadcast deal starting with the 2026 season, giving it time to prove its worth during the early years of Clark’s professional career while also adding more games to the schedule through expansion. The current deal, which also includes games on Amazon Prime Video, is worth around $60 million per year, by front office sports, but the WNBA predicts something in the range of $80 to $100 million annually. It would be a record number for a women’s sports league, but Clark’s appeal could allow the WNBA to separate itself from the joint negotiations it is currently holding with the NBA.

“The question for the WNBA is whether Caitlin Clark can have that kind of impact on her media deal,” Robson said. “It’s certainly a substantial increase in his value, whether it’s combined with the NBA deal or not.”

While a notable increase in broadcast revenue appears to be on the way for the WNBA, the league has a lot of ground to make up when compared to MLS. It lags behind MLS in terms of sponsorship revenue, number of teams and valuations – the Seattle Storm are the WNBA’s most valuable team at $151 million, by fast companywell below the average MLS team valuation of $678 million, by Sportico.

There are several reasons to explain the discrepancy, but the main one is the historical devaluation of women’s sport.

“There’s a lot of room to grow for the WNBA and they still have a long way to go to catch up to MLS and look, MLS is a men’s sport so the obvious answer, first and foremost,” Robson said.

It’s still early days, but the WNBA may already be making some progress when it comes to corporate partners – the Phoenix Mercury just landed a multi-year jersey patch sponsorship with Cleveland Avenue, reportedly worth $3 million annually, which highest value in the league, by Sportico. The deal may not be attributable to the Clark effect, which is perhaps a bigger vote of confidence in the WNBA’s appeal than something directly related to one person.

This perhaps serves as something of a wake-up call for MLS and the WNBA. Some have criticized the singular focus on Messi and Clark by the leagues and the ecosystems that support them, sometimes possibly failing to find the balance between capitalizing on a sports star while highlighting other deserving talent. Having Clark share the spotlight with other athletes could be a strength for the WNBA, which received a high-profile draft class this year that included two women who beat Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes in the last two NCAA championship games – Angel Reese from LSU in 2023 and South Carolina’s Kamilla Cardoso last month. And those are just the newbies. The league is already home to most of the best basketball players in the world including A’ja Wilson, who just signed an exclusive footwear deal with Nikeand Breanna Stewart. It could also be crucial during Clark’s early years in the league, as it’s unclear how quickly she can go from being the best in college basketball to a star in the professional game.

“There’s certainly a group of young athletes in the league who are coming in with a lot of name recognition and who as a group I think are very, very important to the future of the WNBA,” Robson said. “Now, the good part – and the hopeful part, realistically – is that if the surge in popularity of women’s sports continues.”

Not so in MLS, which has a roster of recognizable stars including Messi’s teammate Luis Suarez, but many of them are international imports who are making brief stops in the league. MLS has traditionally not been able to sell itself as the premier destination for its sports, unlike most other American sports leagues, which makes the balance harder to find.

“The WNBA is the destination league for elite women’s basketball and MLS — I think it’s changing, but I think it’s still growing. It’s still in the growth phase,” Armstrong said. “When Messi arrived, there was a different layer of legitimization. If one of the best players in the world went to MLS, I think that would add an element, a different layer of justification and legitimacy to the league. in European leagues and other leagues around the world, it’s not there yet. That doesn’t mean it can’t maximize the market space it occupies.”

Focusing on just one star is often a calculated risk, and perhaps necessary for MLS and WNBA as they chart exponential growth. The most sustainable strategy, however, will require each league to leave room for other stars to shine as well.

“You’re always trying to develop the next athlete because otherwise, when that athlete leaves the league, you’re going to have a hangover effect,” Robson said. “We saw this in NHL when [Wayne] Gretzky left, we saw that in the NBA after [Michael] Jordan left. There will always be the next great athlete, but that typically doesn’t happen right away, so you want to make sure you continue to groom the next generation of stars even while you’re selling and focusing on your cornerstone athlete.”