Even the biggest stars in Major League Soccer aren’t immune from league discipline.

Inter Miami CF forward Lionel Messi, who has helped bring significant attention to the league since his 2023 arrival, was suspended for one game for missing Wednesday’s league All-Star Game against top players from Liga MX. The one-game suspension is in keeping with existing league policy for players missing the key midseason event without an approved medical reason. 

Messi will be suspended along with teammate Jordi Alba. The pair were voted in to the All-Star Game, but they did not play due to fatigue-related reasons and will be out for the club’s Saturday match against FC Cincinnati. Their absence from the All-Star Game was not communicated until the day of the event. 

“Per league rules, any player who does not participate in the All-Star Game without prior approval from the league is ineligible to compete in their club’s next match,” the league said. 

Bigger Issues

While Messi and Alba did not have prior approved exemptions from the game, their absence speaks to the increased demands on pro soccer players, in MLS and in many other European leagues, and tension is rising around the sport because of it. Calendars within the sport continue to grow more compressed, with additional competitions being created and expanding around existing league play. 

“We’ve been playing practically every three days,” said Inter Miami coach Javier Mascherano on Friday. “It’s not enough rest for the players. The first thing we have to think about is that football belongs to the players. And if football belongs to the players, without players, it doesn’t exist.”

Speaking Wednesday before the All-Star Game, MLS commissioner Don Garber acknowledged that public notification of the status of Messi, a major attendance draw across the league, could have been better managed.

“Yeah, we should have known earlier and we should have addressed it earlier, no doubt about that,” Garber said. 

Garber, however, also acknowledged the heavy demands that have been particularly on Inter Miami, which was one of three MLS teams in the recently concluded FIFA Club World Cup.

“I want to say something that we as a league need to deal with. We have an all-star game that we think is a real priority. As do all leagues. All-star games have a uniqueness as it relates to all the leagues,” Garber said. “Where do you fit it in the schedule and make it a priority for all your stakeholders, not just your players, but your fans, partners, taking a break? It is an important midseason break for us. At the same time, we have a player who has played nine matches in thirty days. Miami’s had a schedule that is unlike any other team. Most of our teams have had a ten-day break. Miami hasn’t.

“We had Leo playing 90 minutes in almost all the games that he played. We have to manage through that as a league. At the same time, we do have rules,” Garber said. 

The Messi situation arrives as MLS is also grappling with potential large-scale changes to its schedule and is also aiming to be more transparent about its media-rights deal with Apple.

Prospective Rays owner Patrick Zalupski, should he succeed in acquiring the MLB club from Stu Sternberg, will officially need to start over in developing a deal for a new venue. 

The city of St. Petersburg, Fla., formally terminated the deal to build a $1.3 billion ballpark and mixed-use development. The step was not a surprise given Sternberg walked away from the deal in March, citing increased costs he was not willing to bear alone. The unanimous approval of a termination agreement Thursday, however, means Zalupski and his partners would need to strike an entirely new pact, should they opt to remain in St. Petersburg long-term. As it is, some reports have suggested Zalupski prefers Hillsborough County, where the NFL’s Buccaneers and NHL’s Lightning play, as a future home for the team. 

The St. Petersburg deal termination—arriving just over one year from when the pact was approved—critically reverts land redevelopment rights from the Rays back to the city. 

“While the Rays’ decision is terribly disappointing, our mission was to adapt and refocus on our primary objective—the progress of our city,” said St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch. “The most important element of this is that the development rights of this area, previously held by the Rays since 1995, are now in the hands of the city. This puts us in the strongest position to assure that the future development of the Historic Gas Plant District meets the needs of St. Petersburg.”

Zalupski, meanwhile, has reached an agreement in principle on a $1.7 billion deal for the Rays, something MLB commissioner Rob Manfred briefly referenced last week at the league’s All-Star Game in Atlanta.

“I have no reason to quibble with or dispute the reports that have been out there,” he said.

A deal, however, won’t be too soon for some local officials.

“Cheap Stu. The Yankees and Phillies have spent millions of their own $ on their spring training stadiums in recent years, while Stu has to sit back and watch everyone else pay for his stadium,” said Pinellas County commissioner Chris Latvala, a frequent critic of Sternberg, in a social media post. “He can’t leave soon enough.”

Over at the Trop

St. Petersburg officials, meanwhile, are making more progress on repairing the hurricane-damaged, city-owned Tropicana Field so the Rays can return there next year. 

Already, preparations have begun to install new roof fabric to replace what was shredded last fall by Hurricane Milton, with that particularly visible part of the job scheduled to be done late this year. The city council, after legally ending the deal for the new stadium Thursday, also approved $5.2 million in electrical and lighting repairs for Tropicana Field. 

While the Rays are playing this year at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, the spring training home of the Yankees, the club intends to return to Tropicana Field next year, and confidence is growing both with MLB and the city that it will be achievable. 

The league plans to release the 2026 schedule next month, and that will give some further clues. An early-season slate that is front-loaded with away games would give crews more time to finish the work. The interim stay at the open-air Tampa stadium this year had the inverse situation, with the Rays playing a large chunk of home games in April and May to avoid the brunt of midsummer Florida heat. 

Amid an accelerating stadium boom around the NFL, the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles are taking further steps to determine their own facility future. 

The Eagles have sent an email survey to their season-ticket holders, looking to gauge their opinions on what the team’s future home venue should be and how best to maximize fan experience. 

“We’re exploring potential updates to Lincoln Financial Field—including both renovations options and the possibility of a brand new stadium in the region,” the email reads in part. 

The effort follows comments from Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie before Super Bowl LIX in which he said the team’s stadium deliberations were beginning to amplify. The city-owned Lincoln Financial Field opened in 2003, and while still quite functional, is beginning to fall behind newer and more technologically advanced facilities such as SoFi Stadium in California and Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. The Eagles’ current lease expires in 2032.

In particular, the Eagles are grappling with whether to build a domed facility, and the fan survey explored several options ranging from fully open-air venues to entirely closed domes and those in between, such as a canopy.

“I love outdoor football. I love the cold games,” Lurie said in February. “On the other hand, Philadelphia deserves to host the Super Bowl, NCAA Final Four, lots of great events. It’s an incredible sports city. Does it deserve it? Yes. So we have to balance all those things.”

League and Local Developments

While keeping up with the Cowboys and their owner, Jerry Jones, is always front and center for the Eagles, given their heated division rivalry, the growing wave of other new NFL facilities, as well as other local developments, more directly colors the situation in Philadelphia. 

New or substantially renovated NFL venues are already on the way in Buffalo, Jacksonville, and Tennessee, while the Commanders and Browns have made material steps in recent weeks on their respective projects, and the Chiefs are looking to decide in the coming months between stadium options in Missouri and Kansas. The Bears’ push for a domed facility, while currently stalled, is certainly not dead, and the Broncos are in a similarly deliberative position as the Eagles. 

Elsewhere in the South Philadelphia sports complex, meanwhile, Comcast Spectacor and Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment intend to develop an arena they foresee as “unlike any other in sports.” Neighboring Citizens Bank Park, meanwhile, will host next year’s MLB All-Star Game, a key part of a heightened wave of top-tier events scheduled for the complex. 

Any renovation or new construction project that the Eagles undertake might happen without any state-level financial support, though. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro recently said he’s “very worried about the overall budget” and that his priority is on “investing in things that Pennsylvanians need most.”