Minnesota United season-ticket holders gained exclusive access Wednesday to the presale for single games during the 2025 MLS season. The most coveted: Loons versus Inter Miami and superstar Lionel Messi on May 10 in St. Paul.

With that match in mind, Ryan Huschka went online to buy more tickets for family members and was hit with sticker shock over prices set by MNUFC.

The general public will see these prices once they gain access at noon Thursday.

Huschka estimates his season tickets average roughly $550 per seat per season — 17 regular-season games, plus one international friendly — and he saw seats next to his inside Allianz Field going for $425 apiece for Miami and Messi.

“I’m so glad I got it that extra hour to not buy anything,” Huschka said sarcastically.

As a diehard Loons fan and a member of the club’s early-adopter Itasca Society, Huschka said he understands the broader, mainstream appeal of watching Messi — the eight-time winner of FIFA’s Ballon d’Or, the award given to the best player in the world — and he anticipated a significant mark-up before the tickets hit the open market. He didn’t expect it to be that high; $100 more would have been palatable, he said.

Huschka posted on X a pair of screenshots of the Allianz Field seat map: one for the Miami match and one for the St. Louis City game a week alter on May 17. One example: prime tickets at the halfway line are $101 for St. Louis and $894 for Miami. And increases were huge elsewhere, too.

The simplest explanation is supply and demand. This one-off match figures to be the 37-year-old Messi’s only visit to Minnesota in his illustrious, World Cup-winning career and Allianz Field holds fewer than 20,000 fans.

Dynamic pricing is another factor in sports. Seeing big-market premium opponents almost always cost more than going to see small-market basement dwellers with less star power.

MNUFC also did not move the Messi-Miami match to a bigger local venue — U.S. Bank or Huntington Bank stadiums — which could have gained a lot more revenue with roughly three times the amount of tickets. MNUFC wanted to honor season-ticket holders such as Huschka. He and others also had access to lower pricing tiers and will be able to sit in their regular seats for that ballyhooed match.

“I appreciate the fact that we got our season tickets at our season ticket price, which is great, right?” Huschka said. “But it sucks for everybody else.”

One caveat, however, is the risk MNUFC would have taken to move to the Messi match to the Vikings’ or Gophers’ venues — he might not have played there. Soccer players, especially older ones, don’t like to play on artificial surfaces.

MNUFC, in a request for comment from the Pioneer Press, said it determined its pricing structure based on data from what other MLS clubs have set for Messi matches and what SeatGeek and other secondary resellers have done since he joined the league in the summer of 2023.

The club looked at the differences in matches when Messi plays against teams in the Eastern Conference (where Miami resides) and the rarer times against clubs in the Western Conference and when Messi did or didn’t play and in MLS or NFL venues.

With the Loons setting these prices, the revenue remains within in the club and, in turn, should be reinvested. If the club had set lower prices, ticket brokers likely would have pocketed that difference with their own markups.

The club also offered the Messi match in a “flex” package of tickets to fans, which did not include fees. MNUFC still has limited season tickets in the supporters sections on the south end of the stadium.

Last season, Messi only played in 19 of 34 regular-season games due to injury and load management.

“My biggest concern would be those people that are going to spend that money and then Messi is out injured or he’s just resting — whatever,” Huschka said. “And it’s like you spent $1,000 for the chance to see Lionel Messi. That’s harsh.”