Major League Soccer should enjoy new levels of prestige and relevance with Lionel Messi deciding to sign with Inter Miami.

On Wednesday afternoon, the club officially welcomed the 35-year-old icon on social media. 

Soccer fans around North America will have the chance to see the seven-time Ballon d’Or winner — and arguably the greatest player of all time — work his magic in new markets like South Florida’s DRV PNK Stadium.

Messi’s Inter Miami debut may come as soon as July 21 for a Leagues Cup match against Cruz Azul in Miami. Before the news was even official, TickPick data showed the get-in price of that game skyrocketing to $329 on Wednesday — a 1,034% increase from Tuesday’s price of $29.

Inter Miami has matches in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Orlando, Chicago, and Charlotte after July 21. This season, the club will visit 17 away venues.

Inter Miami added 1 million Instagram followers Wednesday as word spread that the legendary soccer player could join the squad — doubling the team’s audience on the platform in one day.

Messi reportedly turned down nearly $400 million from a Saudi Arabian club to join Inter Miami, but through his Inter Miami deal, Messi will receive a percentage of all new subscriptions to MLS Season Pass on Apple TV+, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The streaming service is in the first year of a 10-year, $2.5 billion media rights deal that is now much more valuable with Messi playing games it exclusively broadcasts worldwide.

The Athletic reported the deal could also include profit-sharing from Adidas, which renewed its apparel deal with MLS before this season.

Messi owns a home in Miami and has ties with Inter Miami co-owner David Beckham — whose own MLS move in 2007 famously bumped the league’s profile.

Many PGA Tour players remain at the second stage of grief regarding the bombshell PGA Tour-LIV Golf merger: anger. 

But Rory McIlroy — one of Tour commissioner Jay Monahan’s staunchest allies — has moved straight to the final stage of acceptance.

McIlroy, the current No. 3 men’s golfer in the world, said Wednesday at the Canadian Open in Toronto that he’s resigned to the massive wealth and power of Saudi Arabia that has fundamentally transformed the men’s game.

“I’ve made my peace with it. I’ve seen what’s happened in other sports and businesses,” said McIlroy, who is attempting to defend his tournament title there and described himself as a “sacrificial lamb” in his first comments on the deal.

“I’ve just resigned myself to the fact this is going to happen. How do you keep up with people who have more money than anyone else?”

McIlroy’s stance differs from many other PGA Tour players, who remain upset with Monahan for various reasons. Players berated him at a meeting late Tuesday, characterizing the merger as a complete reversal of the Tour’s prior opposition to the Saudis’ involvement in golf — one informed by the latter’s notorious human rights record.

Monahan described the session, which lasted more than an hour, as “intense, certainly heated.”

“I recognize everything I’ve said in the past,” Monahan said. “I recognize people will call me a hypocrite. Anytime I’ve said something, I’ve said it with the information I’ve had.”

Game cancellations could soon domino across sports — particularly in the Northeast U.S. — due to a thick wave of dangerous smoke from Canadian wildfires.

Hundreds of fires spanning from British Columbia to Nova Scotia have blanketed large swaths of the Midwest and Northeast U.S. in a haze of yellowish-gray skies, creating air-quality levels officially deemed unsafe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The New York Yankees played Tuesday night at home against the Chicago White Sox despite New York City officials issuing an official health alert for all five boroughs and Yankee Stadium shrouded in the smoky haze – which prompted a social media frenzy. 

New York City’s air quality ranks among the worst in the world. 

The Yankees’ top minor-league affiliate, the Scranton-Wilkes Barre RailRiders, postponed their home game in Pennsylvania on Tuesday. The Syracuse Mets, the top affiliate of the New York Mets, similarly postponed their game Tuesday and moved a special Wednesday morning Education Day game to 6:35 p.m.

A NWSL match between NJ/NY Gotham FC and the Orlando Pride set for Wednesday was also shifted to August.

Air quality is projected to worsen late Wednesday, and the smoke is expected to remain in some form for at least the rest of this week, likely creating further issues for MLB and Minor League Baseball. The situation remains under close watch by the league, MLB Players Association, and MiLB.

In 2020, MLB postponed two Seattle Mariners home games due to air-quality issues related to California wildfires.