Messi Mania sets off social media, ticketing boom

MIAMI, USA: Lionel Messi has yet to put pen to paper on his impending deal with Inter Miami but already massive interest in the Argentine’s move is driving huge numbers in social media, ticket sales and more. Inter Miami’s followers on Instagram have quintupled since the former Barcelona great revealed on Wednesday that he would be heading to the Major League Soccer club. On Wednesday morning, Inter’s account had around 900,000 followers, a number which had already grown amidst rumors of Messi’s possible arrival.

Less than 24 hours after the news broke, that number had skyrocketed to 6.9 million followers at the time of publishing. That total is more than double the followers of the NFL’s Super Bowl champions the Kansas City Chiefs and even surpasses the 4.5 million enjoyed by ‘America’s team’, the Dallas Cowboys. Indeed, it is higher than all NFL, Major League Baseball and NHL teams and bigger than more than 75 percent of NBA teams.

Inter Miami now has over 7.5M followers across all social platforms and added more than five million new followers on the day of the announcement. Inter though remains the second most popular Miami team on social media with the NBA’s Miami Heat having 27 million followers on all platforms. There are plenty more Messi fans who might be tempted to engage with the club’s content — the player has 469 million followers of his personal instagram account.

That figure makes him the second most popular sportsperson on Instagram, behind only Cristiano Ronaldo who has 588 million. News of Messi’s decision also hugely impacted the ticket market for MLS games. Ticketing technology company Logitix analyzed ticket demand across the league in the 24 hours since Messi’s announcement and found there were