MLS
Inter Miami top MLS salary table: how much do they spend?
The Herons’ salary budget has increased, despite having fewer players and more stars. Messi remains the highest-paid player in MLS.
The MLS continues to grow, gaining cachet every year in terms of both importance and the salaries which players receive. Lionel Messi’s arrival caused a huge economic injection for the league, with announcements of new alliances with global, blue chip companies such as Apple, Visa, Adidas, AiT&T, Coca-Cola and Heineken, to name a few. Thanks to the money being invested, the league is now able to compete head-to-head with other markets on the continent, although it is still a long way off being able to match Saudi Arabia, its great international rival.
In the absence of hard, concrete numbers, the first leaks of this year places Inter Miami as the team with the most spending on playing staff. The Fort Lauderdale franchise will have a fixed expense during the 2024 season of almost $42 million. Out of all of the players on the roster, Messi will take practically half of the pie with a $20 million cut - well ahead of other Designated Players like Jordi Aba with $1.25 million) and Leo Campana with $2.2 million. Although the Argentine can almost triple his salary with other endorsements and ventures (between 50 and 60 million dollars), Inter Miami is only responsible for half of the contract. Other external sponsors such as Adidas and Apple take care of the rest of it.
How much does Luis Suárez earn at Inter Miami?
Recent arrival like Luis Suárez earns a salary of around $1.5 million - a quarter of what he earned in Brazil with Grêmio ($6 million), and less than LA Galaxy star Riqui Puig ($2.45 million, 41% more), Nashville midfielder Hany Mukhtar ($5.2 million, 63% more) or Italian forward Lorenzo Insigne ($15.4 million), who is the second highest-paid player in the MLS.
There is no doubt about that there exists a before and after in Major League Soccer - a direct result of Messi’s arrival. The league has seen how in recent years its income has skyrocketed to $2,000 million to invest just over 25% in salary issues. There are now four teams that annually exceed the barrier of $20 million of their budget in the payrolls of footballers (Inter Miami with $41 million, Toronto with $32 million, Chicago Fire with $25 million and Nashville with $21 million) and it is expected that this list will continue to grow in the coming years.
The arrival of a new colossus - San Diego, who are scheduled to join MLS as an expansion team in 2025, gives rise to hope for the league’s sports management to continue growing. The Californian team’s project is one of the most competitive in recent years - their aim is to compete with Inter Miami right from their debut season. At the moment, there is talk that they could sign highly-experienced players of the stature of Modric, Sergio Ramos, Keylor Navas, ‘Chuky’ Lozano or Nacho... players who won’t be cheap to hire.