The duality of Miami told through two legends: Lionel Messi & LeBron James
Two sides of a coin.
Miami, Florida, is not the genesis of anything in the world of professional athletics. The Miami Dolphins are Florida’s oldest professional sports team, and it took 5 decades to join the NFL after some momentary obscurity in the AFL. Florida gained its first NBA franchise, the Miami Heat, in 1988, over 4 decades since the league’s inception. The Miami (then Florida) Marlins were invited into the MLB over a century after the league’s incarnation; and the Florida Panthers are even younger in the NHL than the Marlins are in baseball. Years had gone by and Miami seemed to be missing its only mark in the world of soccer; this was resolved in 2020 with Inter Miami CF. Miami is a city that has had to earn its position in the sports universe in coalition with the city’s desire for status in the nation and world. After years of exponential expansion of the city, whether it was due to the lack of income tax or the sunny weather during winter, the hype is starting to cool down. Last year saw Miami’s population barely increase by a rate of 1.6%, while the county that it inhabits (Miami-Dade County) actually decreased by 1%. As a life-long Miami Beach resident, this leads me to wield a hopeful idealization; the city will begin to carve out an identity other than the fact that it has always had such an amorphous one. Miami’s distinct perception was the fact that it could not be pinned down or defined by certain eras, but I believe two athletes have clearly outlined a transition in the city’s ethos: Lionel Messi and LeBron James.
When LeBron James came to South Beach, it was a momentous occasion that was encapsulated by a self-indulgent press-run that forced the NBA world to revolve around the schedule of the superstar. James had skipped his collegiate career to take advantage of his unparalleled potential by opting to enter the 2003 NBA Draft straight out of high-school. Many NBA players find themselves spiritually wounded the moment they are brought into the spotlight; think about this past year with Cam Whitmore, a supposed guaranteed lottery-pick who went from feeling secure to questioning whether his first NBA contract would even be guaranteed after he started slipping down the draft board. New NBA players often have to accept the blunt reality that they will have to create a life wherever they are told to go in exchange for an exorbitant salary. In contrast, LeBron James’s leap into professionalism enabled him to simply head straight back home. James was selected 1st overall in his draft class by his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers. It’s a storybook introduction for an athlete to immediately be granted the chance to bequeath glory upon not only the team that they grew up adoring, but an entire city that has become invested in the prosperity of a single human. It is difficult for athletes to transcend their respective sports, but James managed to do so without stepping foot on an NBA court; being labeled “the chosen one” will do that to you. The Cavaliers had not been to the NBA Playoffs since 1998, and LeBron managed to lead numerous expendable and decrepit rosters to such a level in just his 3rd season; he was barely 21 years old. This feat was repeated every season until his departure in 2010. In just his second postseason stint, and at 22 years old, he carried his squad to the NBA Finals. These were not normal achievements, but James was supposed to have a fantasy NBA narrative that should have immediately rivaled the ordained GOAT, Michael Jordan, so his prophecy remained unfulfilled until he donned a ring on his finger. This is what led him to the promised land of Miami Beach. James clearly shared this overshadowing sentiment about his legacy, as years of what were shortcomings for someone like him, but career-defining for a regular player, influenced James to unite with Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade to give a Championship a shot, but this time it was on James’ terms. James’ move to Miami epitomized the extreme impetus of the city at the time; after becoming one of the myriad of metropolitan areas to be decimated by the 2008 U.S. recession, it was on the rebound. The city lost nearly $12 million in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from 2008 to 2009 (a similarly somber timespan for the Heat as a franchise), but Miami had earned back these losses by the end of the Big 3’s first season in Miami. James complemented Miami’s fiscal boom with how much he instantaneously injected the Heat with money; James’ Miami Heat jersey ranked at the top of jersey sales leaderboards in 3 out of his 4 seasons in Florida. The Heat also placed in the top 5 for league-wide in-person attendance in every one of James’ seasons in Miami. James was an artificial, but necessary, rejuvenation for a city that was lacking personality and energy.
Lionel Messi is a wholly different character from James, but had a correlative rise to acclaim. Messi was born in Argentina and moved to Spain to join FC Barcelona’s academy structure at 13 years old, where he debuted for the club at an even younger age than James did for Cleveland. Both James and Messi wielded undying loyalty to their origins, Messi got his real professional start in Spain, but international silverware for his home country was a perpetual priority. Just as James was, Messi was anointed the future of not only his team, but the entire sport that he had been playing since he was a child. Both had to mature quickly, and Messi did so by winning virtually everything throughout his tenure at Barcelona. Although Messi wanted to continue playing for the only club he had ever truly known, contractual obstructions eventually found him playing in France for Paris Saint Germain (PSG). While many believed PSG was going to be his second-wind of club-level success, it actually served as the build-up to his greatest achievement: a World Cup. In 2022, Messi essentially completed soccer; he had won everything on an individual or team level. About a year has passed since the pinnacle of Messi’s career, where he is days removed from participating in his first match for a club in the same city where James won his first NBA title.
It is evident that Messi and James showcase two separate phases of Miami’s return to the mainstream of professional athletics since 2010. For James, it was right as the Ohioan was reaching his prospective apex, for Messi, it’s the conclusion of an illustrious career and seemingly endless prime. Messi rejected a considerably more lucrative offer from Saudi Arabia’s top soccer league to join Inter Miami CF, a club where any awards or personal distinctions he receives will be surely discounted due to the MLS’ stigmatized quality of play, but the Argentinian’s move was not about the money. James reached his ultimate goal by way of his own demands when he left the midwest for the south, but Messi made due with the multiple machinations of tactics, teammates and caliber of competition at every stage of his career. Now in his twilight, Messi has finally decided to draft his own terms and conditions, and as any new iPhone user would do, Miami signed them blindly. And, why wouldn’t they? Messi and Inter Miami’s deal is more than just reciprocal, as the value Messi as an icon brings to any club and league exceeds most of what any corporation could provide him in return. Messi knows that though, and rather than having to actively vouch for a league like Saudi’s that is trying to pay its way into earning recognition, the MLS understands that even a passive effort by the Argentine will turbocharge their public momentum. MLS fans are much more likely to be Hispanic, Latino or generally Spanish-speaking, and these are audiences that are primarily soccer fans, not NBA fans who share a fandom with the Dolphins and Marlins. Furthermore, almost a quarter of Miami’s population is made up of Generation Z residents (aged 11–26) and soccer is the second-most participated in sport by Gen-Zers in the United States. Messi has given everything that a city could want to Miami, and Miami has merely given as good as one gets.
James and Messi embodied two different sides of the city of Miami: James represented the grander theme of commercialism and capitalism during Miami’s socio-economic resurgence, while Messi captures what the city of Miami is, not what it yearns to be, which is a melting pot of culture that has turned the eyes of an American city to an international demographic. It doesn’t matter if Messi does not maintain his career-long form of excellence, because once that free-kick glided into the top bin, Miami’s prayers had been answered.