Would you pay $9,395 to watch Lionel Messi play at Yankee Stadium?

When Lionel Messi took the field last Saturday night for Inter Miami, you could hear a sigh of relief echo from the headquarters of Major League Soccer and Apple TV.

The league's marquee player was back in action after being sidelined with an injury picked up in the 2024 Copa America, scoring a brace in Miami's 3-1 romp over Philadelphia Union. All was right again in the universe — and in the MLS economic model that has Messi putting fans in seats and drawing eyes to broadcasts.

There was another sigh of relief heard at the New York City FC headquarters in Midtown Manhattan. After all, Miami is coming to town to play NYCFC at Yankee Stadium this coming Saturday, and all signs point to Messi making his Bronx debut as planned.

Inter Miami Ticket Prices*

Messinomics

To be clear, NYCFC will take no responsibility for Messi appearing in the Miami game. New York City President and CEO Brad Sims said as much to us in an interview earlier this year. Let other clubs apologize and hand out food vouchers to fans because the away team’s biggest star stayed home: NYCFC is playing Miami, not Messi, and unless COVID-24 comes roaring through the northeast between now and Saturday, the team in sky blue will play the team in pink in the latest edition of the Gender Reveal Derby.

While New York City can’t decide if Messi will play, they can determine the base prices of the tickets for the Miami game. NYCFC are opening the entire stadium for the first time since 2016 in anticipation of Messi playing in The Bronx, and when the club released tickets to the general public back in April, the cheapest seats in the upper deck were priced at $235. Since then, they added more seating, and now you can grab a spot in the very back row of the 400 level for $158.95 including fees.

As for premium seats, those are mostly available on the secondary market and start north of $2,300. The most desirable address in the stadium is the Pitchside Seating along the sideline next to the player benches. Those are the plush temporary seats that are rolled out onto the Yankee Stadium outfield like at some sort of luxe high school field. The seats face the east, and will be in full sun for a game with a kickoff at 2:00 pm ET, but they’re right on top of the players, who warm up on the grass just to the back. 

The two seats right next to the away bench, which will put you within fist-bumping distance of Miami wunderkind Benjamin Cremaschi, are currently available for $9,395.05 each including fees. Note that this sum includes parking, food, and non-alcoholic drinks. 

Those are the most expensive seats available right now. The Pitchside Seating next to the home bench costs just $8,330 per seat, while others a little farther down the sideline can be had for as little as $1,904, but most are priced between $2,300 and $6,000. Who doesn’t love a deal?

New York prices, baby 

But these prices aren't just astronomical by the standards of a regular MLS match, they're high when compared to other games that feature Miami. If you find yourself in Atlanta tomorrow night, you could snag a seat to watch Luis Suárez, Sergio Busquets, and the rest of the Herons for just $44. 

But Atlanta isn’t New York City, where everything is more expensive, more crowded, more tense, more filthy, and way, way better. Who wants to spend less than $50 to get into one of the best arenas in professional football – or less than $2,000 for a pitchside seat in the first row – when you can be charged a 4X premium to go to a baseball stadium and sit in a sit that doesn’t quite face the field? You get what you pay for.

There's no way to track the inflation of the price of a seat in the 400 level because this is the first time this season that the section will be open. But a field-level seat that will cost you a cool $468.10 to watch Miami on Saturday will run you $60.90 to watch the Philadelphia Union game tomorrow night. That's a jump of 768%. 

To be clear, these are the retail prices for tickets sold directly by the club via Ticketmaster, and not the inflated prices of tickets sold on the secondary market.

1 Messi = 15 MLS games

Now for some back-of-the-envelope match. Attendance this Saturday is expected to be north of 40,000, which would be about 100% higher than the season average of around 21,000. If prices are up 668%, and you double the number of seats sold, this one game will have the financial footprint of more than 15 regular MLS matches for NYCFC.

When you consider that New York City will play a total of 17 home games this year — and that two of those will be at Red Bull Arena, where the announced attendance will likely be closer to 9,000 per match – then you start to get a sense of Messi's impact on NYCFC's finances. Add it all up, divide one by the other, factoring in the two games in Harrison, and you'll see that Saturday’s Miami game might account for 48% of New York City’s gate receipts this season.

Please remember that this figure is pure speculation. It’s hard to pin down the pricing for every section of a stadium in which luxury boxes behind home plate are far from the action, while seats in the right field porch have excellent views. We know that season ticket holders didn’t pay a premium for their seats, and that they can buy additional places at a discount. There are too many variables to identify and factor, and frankly, we’re not going to bother trying to sort them out.

But even if the accounting division at NYCFC will never share their figures with us, we are certain that Messinomics has changed the finances of this league. It doesn’t matter if one match with Messi has the impact of five or 15 regular MLS games, or if Saturday’s contest accounts for 15% or 65% of the team’s box office. His mere presence is a wealth generator for clubs. 

Whether that translates into a quality game remains to be seen. Messi was key to Miami’s win over Philadelphia, and his two goals last week give him 14 this season. Messi certainly performed well in his return to Ft. Lauderdale. But can he do it on a Saturday in The Bronx?