How Messi’s Genius $1.5B Deal Could Make You Rich
The media all missed this…
Lionel Messi has just played in his 6th World Cup. And he holds the record for the most World Cup matches ever played.
But the world only talks about what he does on the field. So they missed this hidden deal when he signed with Inter Miami in 2023.
And to discover all the secrets behind Lionel Messi’s deal, I break them all down in episode 1 of my new show, Billion Dollar Deals.
I’m taking everything I’ve learned from my career at Goldman Sachs and building two billion dollar businesses to analyze exactly how the biggest deals on the planet are made.
In every episode, I’ll be breaking down the hidden strategies and risks behind deals that changed industries and built empires.
All while giving you the tactics to try them for yourself in your own life or business:
Here are the secrets behind his deal that you can use to build your own wealth…
It was the summer of 2022. The MLS was still a league where some of the best European players went to hang up their cleats.
But the MLS wanted to change that. So in June 2022, they made their biggest bet to date:
A ten-year, $2.5B broadcasting deal with Apple TV.
This meant all MLS games would finally be on one platform around the world. But this wasn’t a typical broadcast deal.
The MLS had committed to one platform in an all-or-nothing deal. And nobody else in soccer history had ever done this before.
But here’s the thing:
The deal only made sense if enough people paid for Apple TV in order to justify the $2.5B bet.
This is why the MLS needed the world’s attention to make the deal with Apple worth it. But Apple wasn’t the only one placing bets on the MLS…
Adidas had just renewed its $830 million MLS kit deal for the next 6 years. Adidas was now the league’s apparel partner until the end of the decade.
And this meant they’d get a percentage of every jersey and piece of merchandise sold.
But they’d also need a name big enough to sell millions of jerseys...
So now the MLS, Inter Miami, Apple, and Adidas needed someone big enough to make people want to watch American soccer.
A player with the kind of magnetic pull that would have people paying a monthly subscription just to watch him play.
The kind of player who would have soccer fans from around the world buying his jersey…
They needed Lionel Messi.
In June 2023, Messi became a free agent, and he was free to sign with any club without a transfer fee. This was only the second time in his career that he would be a free agent.
Now the entire soccer world was glued to their phones, waiting to see where he would go next...
In January 2023, Saudi club Al Nassr signed Cristiano Ronaldo on a reported $200M-per-year deal. And now two other Saudi clubs wanted Messi in the league as well.
Why?
Because they wanted to use Messi and Ronaldo to clean up their global image and make a World Cup bid. So two Saudi clubs made an offer to Messi:
$400M per year from Al Hilal
Or $1.5B in total from Al-Ittihad.
But Jorge Mas, the managing owner of MLS soccer team Inter Miami, had one of the only things that could make Messi turn down a $1.5B deal…
He could offer Messi equity.
Messi had spent twenty years as the most valuable “employee” in soccer. But he never had an ownership stake.
That’s why the only right choice for Messi was Inter Miami. So on July 15, 2023, Messi officially signed with Inter Miami.
And in just 3 years, Inter Miami’s valuation more than doubled to $1.4 billion. They had added over $800 million in value and proved that the Messi effect was real.
And this is where the real financial genius of Lionel Messi is shown. The price is what the headlines talk about.
But the terms are the hidden layers of the deal they don’t talk about. And in this deal, we have 3 layers:
Layer 1 is salary, which we know is $20.4M
Layer 2 is revenue share. This is the percentage of what you’re paid every time the business makes money.
And finally, layer 3 is equity.
This is what Jorge Mas used to beat the $1.5 billion Saudi offer. It was ownership in a growing, potential billion-dollar team.
And this is what completed Messi’s deal. It’s what I like to call…
The Founder’s Contract.
Messi was willing to take a 96% reduction in base salary and a 10-year horizon to build his ownership. You can do this with deals that can make you rich too, just like Lionel Messi.
But in order to do this, you should do these 3 things:
1. Get high-income skills that can get you a higher salary base.
This could be building AI systems and automations for companies today that save them money and make them more efficient.
2. Be willing to trade skills for performance-based comp.
Meaning lower guaranteed salary, but more bonus if you do well. This could be negotiating a share or a cut of the money you save the company.
Let me give you an example:
Let’s say you cut $500,000 in costs and 2% of that comes back to you… that’s already $10,000.
3. The biggest bet you can make is like what Messi did: You deeply discount your compensation of today and trade it for long-term value that you help create.
This might be taking a salary that, on paper, barely covers your living expenses.
Instead, you take 2% equity in a startup you believe in. A few years later, the company sells for $40 million… your 2% just became $800,000.
And this is why ownership in place of a guaranteed salary is the ultimate sign of betting on yourself.
It’s the same trade Messi is making with the founder’s contract to make him even wealthier in the long run.
His bet on himself to create value for the MLS, Apple, Adidas, and Inter Miami was a big risk and a lesson in what choosing ownership over salary really means.
And his deal proves the most valuable asset on Earth isn’t being paid for the work you do…
It’s being compensated for the value you help to create.
So when you create this value, becoming rich will be almost guaranteed.
Because the truth is…
If you do more than you’re paid for, you will get paid for more than you do.