This week's marketing winners, losers and newsmakers.

Winners

MLS: The pro soccer league—and American soccer in general—got a massive boost this week when Lionel Messi announced  he would play for MLS franchise Inter Miami in a move the Wall Street Journal called the “most seismic deal since [David] Beckham … joined the Los Angeles Galaxy in January 2007.”

In addition to his team salary, Messi will be compensated by two MLS sponsors, Apple and Adidas, according to reports. Not surprisingly, ticket prices to see him play soared, including for road games—Reuters reports that ticket prices on secondary markets for Inter Miami's match at the New York Red Bulls on Aug. 26 surged 1,236%. Online interest in the MLS, meanwhile, has surged 197%, measured by the number of page views of content on the topic across more than 9,000 publishers, according to Taboola.

In other soccer news, United Airlines struck a deal to sponsor Wrexham AFC that includes the airline’s logo appearing on the front of the celeb-owned team’s jerseys.

NHL: Soccer is not the only sport enjoying a bump. Professional hockey is having a moment—so says sponsorship consultancy SponsorUnited, which this week released a report showing that NHL sponsorship revenue surged 21% to $1.28 billion this season, thanks to new inventory, including new “digitally enhanced dasherboards (DEDs)” and on-jersey sponsor patches.

Look back: How the NHL is reinventing in-game marketing

American Express: The finance brand was a big winner at the Association of National Advertisers’ Masters of B2B Marketing Conference in Florida this week. At an awards gala, AmEx won “Best in Show” for its “American Express Business Card Chronicles” campaign, made with Dentsu Creative. The campaign, which demonstrated how business owners could use Amex business cards to solve their problems, drove record card usage.

Losers

Microsoft: The tech giant attracted the ire of scores of customers on Monday amid widespread outages for its Outlook email and Teams video products. Perhaps users should start planning for inevitable problems—Computer World noted that this was Microsoft 365’s seventh outage this year alone. Also this week, Microsoft reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission after violating children’s privacy with its Xbox data collection. The company will pay $20 million.

Hyundai/Kia: Hyundai might still be basking the glow of a recent complimentary feature story in the Wall Street Journal about its electric vehicle innovation entitled “How did Hyundai get so cool?”—but the automaker, along with fellow South Korean brand Kia, is still getting negative press over car thefts, specifically over viral TikTok videos showing how the cars are easy to steal. The latest shot comes from New York City, which as CNBC reports has filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging the automakers created a “public nuisance” by failing to install devices that keep the cars from being stolen. Both brands say they have taken measures to combat the thefts.

Reddit: The platform is one of the latest brands to make cuts in a tough economy. On Tuesday, Reddit laid off 5% of its staff. The company joins the ranks of other big tech names such as Meta, Spotify and Amazon, which have all made recent cuts.

Quote of the week

“We believe football is for everyone and are proud to have players, coaches, fans and employees who are part of the LGBTQ community. Our inclusivity work continues full speed ahead.”—the NFL, which this week announced its first-ever Pride capsule fashion and merch collection at a time when other brands are taking a cautious approach to Pride marketing.

Read more: Pride month guide for brands

Number of the week

10: Number of Nike athletes in Dick’s Sporting Goods’ latest campaign, the second iteration of the “Sports Change Lives” push released in March. Some of the athletes included in the series created with Nike are Carmelo Anthony, Alex Morgan and Mike Trout.

Tweet of the week

On the move

NIQ, a consumer intelligence provider, hired Jacqueline Flam as senior VP of U.S. beauty retail. She had been chief marketing officer at Pierre Fabre.

Retailer Rue21 appointed Karlyn Mattson as executive VP and chief customer officer. She was most recently executive VP and chief merchandising officer at GNC.

Edible—whose franchised stores sell fresh fruit arrangements, baked goods, flowers and more—announced Kevin Keith as CMO. He was recently chief brand officer at Orangetheory Fitness.

The Wonderful Company appointed Benal Serin as senior VP of marketing. She had been CMO at Profectus Beauty.