FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- You could hear the parking lot surrounding DRV PNK Stadium before you could see it.
Inter Miami was preparing to introduce perhaps the single biggest signing in American professional sports: Lionel Messi.
The 20,000 fans arriving for Sunday's event responded in kind. Drums, horns, cymbals, reggaeton. Argentina and Inter Miami flags waving alongside one another, the Albiceleste and the pink-and-black colors rippling in a rapidly darkening sky.
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An hour or so before the gates opened, it looked like a typical south Florida day.