The World Cup, the Ballon D'Or and now TIME Magazine's Athlete of the Year. Lionel Messi has dominated the soccer scene for almost 20 years now, but his recent arrival at Inter Miami and the MLS means he's also revolutionizing one of the largest holdouts when it comes to the world's most popular sport: the United States.
Messi's presence on the pitches across the country has attracted an unprecedented number of eyeballs: "On the day of Messi's Inter Miami debut, Apple added some 110,000 U.S. subscriptions to its MLS Season Pass service, according to analytics company Antenna. It was the largest ever single-day spike and a 1,700% increase over the prior day," the magazine recalled.
