We had a blast putting together our first newsletter, debriefing the World Cup Final and the Open Championship.
Today, welcome to The Signal, Box Score's Wednesday newsletter. Each week: one question, a handful of data points, and a conversation that runs past last call.
This week, we’re starting with a simple question: Is there such a thing as the GOAT of the sports economy?
Beginning with—who else?—a 39-year-old who just played what was likely the final World Cup match of his career but continues to be a one-man bull market.
Now that Lionel Messi has almost certainly played his final World Cup match, the retrospectives are being drafted, and they’ll do what retrospectives do: tally the conventional units. Goals. Trophies. Championships. It’s a tidy accounting — and also an incomplete one.
At a World Cup featuring 48 countries and more than 1,200 of the world's best players, Messi wasn’t simply the tournament's biggest star. He was its commercial center of gravity, fronting roughly 1 in 4 of the tournament's biggest ad campaigns, in what’s being called the most lucrative sporting event in history, with over $9 billion in revenue. And that’s only one line on the balance sheet.
Later this month, Messi will rejoin his MLS team, Inter Miami, where his impact is easier to price. In the three years since he traded Barcelona's cathedral for Miami's start-up, Messi has become more than the world's best soccer player. As the Wall Street Journal put it, he's become a billion-dollar economic engine.
Consider the impact on:
His team. Inter Miami was worth roughly $585 million when Messi arrived in 2023. Today it's valued at an estimated $1.45 billion, the most valuable club in Major League Soccer, according to Sportico.
His league. When Messi comes to town, teams don't just sell out — they change venues to NFL stadiums to accommodate record crowds. A study found that Messi’s arrival in town drove away-game ticket prices up 410–477% on the secondary market.
His city. Inter Miami's Messi-led transformation into a global franchise now has a physical footprint: Miami Freedom Park, the 131-acre development anchored by Nu Stadium, which carries a price tag north of $1 billion and has become one of the city's marquee real estate plays.
And none of this captures the harder-to-measure effects: streaming subscriptions, merchandise, tourism and global attention that now follow Messi from city to city. Nearly half of all MLS Season Pass signups came in the month Messi signed with Inter Miami.
Messi's contract runs through the 2028 season and, depending on how it's measured, is worth roughly $70–$80 million annually when salary, bonuses and his future equity stake are included. That's a staggering number — until you look at the return. Even after paying Messi, Inter Miami became the most profitable club in MLS last season, and revenue has nearly quadrupled since 2022, to roughly $200 million.
All of this raises a question: Is Lionel Messi the GOAT of the sports economy?
We know how to measure athletic greatness. Every action on the field has a metric attached to it. Economic greatness is harder.
Michael Jordan proved an athlete could become a global brand. Tiger Woods built a billion-dollar golf business around himself. But today's superstars create value on an entirely different scale. As media rights, private equity and streaming have transformed the economics of sports, the biggest stars raise franchise valuations, reshape media rights, and expand global audiences. And Messi’s far from the only one.
Shohei Ohtani expanded a global market. During the Dodgers' World Series run, more people watched in Japan than in the United States. Tourism from Japan surged after his arrival, and the Dodgers reportedly recouped the value of his $700 million contract during his first season through ticket sales, merchandise and global marketing.
After LeBron James’ return to the Cavs a decade ago, a Harvard Kennedy School study found a 13% increase in restaurants and bars within a mile of the Cavaliers' arena, along with a 23.5% increase in employment at those businesses.
Caitlin Clark supercharged a league. A finance professor estimated Clark generated 26.5% of the WNBA's economic activity during her rookie season, driven by ticket sales, merchandise and television audiences.
Lionel Messi may be the only athlete on the planet doing all of those things at once: raising franchise values, accelerating tourism, attracting investment and elevating an entire league.
So is he the GOAT of the sports economy?
Maybe.
But before we engrave the trophy, we should decide what we're actually measuring.
This kind of value doesn't fit neatly into a box score. Some athletes transform franchises. Others reshape leagues, unlock new markets or change the economics of an entire sport.
So we're building a way to measure it.
Over the coming months, we’ll be building the GOAT Value Index: a framework for evaluating an athlete's economic impact across the sports ecosystem. We'll measure everything from franchise valuations and media rights to sponsorships, tourism, attendance, merchandising and city-level economic development. We'll talk with economists, academics, team executives, investors and sports-business experts. We'll pressure-test the assumptions and refine the model as we go.
We'd like to hear from you, too. What are we missing? Which athletes belong on this list? Who’s missing? Where are our blind spots?
We'll read the feedback, challenge our assumptions and build the index through conversations.
The GOAT debate will never end. But maybe we've been keeping score the wrong way. 💰
What’s Up Next?
Join the conversation and tell us your GOAT of the sports economy at [email protected]. And if you enjoyed this edition of Box Score, please pass it along to a friend and encourage them to sign up at boxscoresports.com. See you again on Friday!
