Messi’s unorthodox deal to play for the MLS — and Apple

The big picture: Most of the money in sports comes from contracts with streamers or broadcasters. The TV companies pay the leagues, the leagues distribute the money among the teams, and the teams use that money to pay their players.

• Normally, players negotiate with teams, who have various financial and non-financial incentives to win as many games as possible and who are willing to invest in players who will help them in that quest.
• While Messi has clear financial value to Miami, however — tickets for his games have already soared in price — his real value is to the league as a whole. (Not least because, as Axios Sports author Jeff Tracy notes: "Every team will have their biggest day of the season whenever Miami is in town.")

Be smart: Apple signed a 10-year deal to stream Major League Soccer matches last year. Nothing could increase the value of that deal more than Messi joining MLS — so Apple was happy to chip in to make that happen.

The bottom line: Even with extra cash from Apple, it's highly unlikely that Messi will make as much from this deal as he would have playing in Saudi Arabia. But Apple helped to make Inter Miami's bid competitive — and has given Messi the opportunity to turn soccer into a broadly popular spectator sport in the U.S.