An expansion option, four years of stadium talks and a Spanish name.

Inter Miami grew out of a clause in a playing contract. English Wikipedia says that when David Beckham joined the LA Galaxy in 2007, his business manager Simon Fuller negotiated an option for him to buy an MLS expansion team once his playing career was over. Beckham stopped playing in 2013, and the league announced on 5 February 2014 that he had exercised the option and that Miami Beckham United, the investment group led by Beckham, Fuller and the Miami-based businessman Marcelo Claure, would own a team in Miami, provided a stadium could be agreed.

The project took four more years to clear. Wikipedia says that in presentations to officials and investors the group used “Miami Vice” and “Miami Current” as working titles, while a series of downtown stadium proposals fell through. The league approved the Miami franchise on 29 January 2018. By then the group included Beckham, Claure, Fuller, the SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son, and the brothers Jorge and José Mas, the Miami businessmen who lead the telecoms and construction company MasTec. The team was scheduled to start play in 2020.

The name arrived that autumn. Sports Illustrated reported on 5 September 2018 that the club would be called Club Internacional de Fútbol Miami, or Inter Miami CF for short, and observed that MLS, having used United, City, Real, Sporting and FC in team names, now had an Inter. In a statement quoted by the magazine, Beckham said the name celebrated the energy of a diverse and ambitious city that had welcomed him warmly, and that the club would be a home for everyone, wherever they came from. Jorge Mas said the name paid tribute to the inclusiveness of a city whose population came from all over the world.

The long form is Spanish, and the short form is the one fans and broadcasters use. Wikipedia gives the Spanish everyday version as Inter de Miami. The name brought a legal argument with it: Wikipedia says Inter Milan, which had sought US trademark protection for “Inter” in 2014, sued the Miami club in February 2020, and the two sides settled in 2021, leaving Inter Miami free to keep its name.

The team played its opening MLS match on 1 March 2020, away to Los Angeles FC, Wikipedia says. Its home debut, scheduled against Beckham’s former club, the LA Galaxy, was postponed when the COVID-19 pandemic halted the season, and the club began its home schedule in Fort Lauderdale later that year.

A creative director, the Art Deco district and a bird native to the region.

Beckham wanted the badge to look backwards before it looked forwards. designboom reported on 7 November 2018 that he had given the job to Kimou Meyer, executive creative director of the branding firm Doubleday & Cartwright. Beckham told the magazine that the crest had been very important to him and that he had always been drawn to the old South American club crests, an influence he wanted in the Miami badge.

Meyer described a process rooted in the look of the city. He told designboom that the team studied Miami’s iconography and architecture, especially the Art Deco movement, and settled on the great white heron, a bird native to the region, as the club’s symbol. Two herons face each other on the shield, and their interlocking legs form the letter M. The magazine said the herons stood for freedom and the interlocked legs for the club’s “unbreakable unity,” while the eclipse between them represented a resolve to work day and night.

The details carry further references. Wikipedia says the sun in the middle of the badge has seven rays, a nod to the number Beckham often wore as a player, and that the full crest circles the shield with the club’s name and the Roman numerals MMXX, for 2020, the season the team began to play. Sports Illustrated described the reveal as a black, white and pink logo, with “Club Internacional de Fútbol” bending around the shield and “Miami” above the two herons. Wikipedia adds that the three points of the shield stand for the three main communities of South Florida: Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.

The birds needed some explaining. After the reveal, Wikipedia says, some viewers took them for flamingos or egrets, and the club clarified that they are white herons.

Pink was the deciding colour. Meyer told designboom that once work began on the palette, pink quickly became the obvious choice, and that if one city in the world could own pink, it was Miami; he tied the shade to the city’s sunrises. Wikipedia lists the club colours as pink, white and black, with occasional blue, as on the “La Palma” jersey. The pink also reached the club’s interim ground in Fort Lauderdale, which was branded DRV PNK Stadium from 2021 under a naming deal with AutoNation, a tie-in with the car retailer’s breast cancer awareness campaign.

Clubs, crests and colours.

North American soccer clubs build their identities from a small set of recurring parts: a crest, a pair or trio of colours, a wordmark, and the supporter scarf that carries all three into the stands. Crests in the league tend to favour simple outlines, such as shields, circles and roundels, that can be stitched onto a shirt, printed on a ticket and shown at small size on a phone screen without losing their shape. Colour choices often borrow from a city’s landscape, history or older sports teams, and clubs often give their main shade its own name in brand materials.

Scarves sit at the centre of supporter culture. Fan groups commission their own designs, hold them aloft during anthems, and use banners, flags and choreographed displays to turn a stand into a large-scale graphic surface. Many clubs share stadiums with football, baseball or other tenants, so signage, seat colours and temporary dressing must switch between teams from one week to the next. Expansion launches add another layer: a new club usually reveals its name, crest and colours months before its first match, often after supporter consultation, and the reveal itself becomes a design event.

Buyouts, a Fort Lauderdale base and a stadium on a former golf course.

The ownership group has changed shape since the bid. Wikipedia says Beckham bought out Fuller in May 2019, and on 17 September 2021 it was announced that Beckham and the Mas brothers had bought out the stakes of Claure and Son, with the investment firm Ares Management joining the group. The ownership vehicle, formed as Miami Beckham United, now trades as Miami Freedom Park LLC, and Jorge Mas is the managing owner.

Home has been a two-step story. The club built an interim stadium and training base on the former Lockhart Stadium site in Fort Lauderdale, where the city approved a long-term lease in July 2019 while keeping ownership of the land. The ground opened as DRV PNK Stadium and was renamed Chase Stadium on 20 February 2024 under a naming partnership with JPMorgan Chase. The training complex next door has carried the Florida Blue name since September 2022.

The permanent home is in Miami itself. Voters approved a referendum on 6 November 2018 that allowed the city to negotiate a lease for Miami Freedom Park on the former Melreese golf course near Miami International Airport, and designboom reported at the time that the architecture for the development was by Arquitectonica. Wikipedia says the city commission granted a lease in April 2022, construction began in 2023, and in March 2026 the stadium was named Nu Stadium under an agreement with the Brazilian fintech company Nubank. The team has played its home matches there since April 2026.

Sponsors sit around the crest rather than on it. Wikipedia lists a partnership with AutoNation from April 2021, Tudor as official timekeeper from March 2024, a Lowe’s partnership from April 2024 and a Visa sponsorship from May 2024, and names the Royal Caribbean Group as a current sponsor. The club plays in the Eastern Conference of MLS.

For a design guide, Inter Miami CF shows how a new club can borrow a city’s architecture and light, putting Art Deco herons and Miami pink on a shield two years before its opening match. Compare Miami Heat, another Miami team, and LA Galaxy, the club where Beckham’s ownership option began. For this guide we use heron pink, eclipse black and sand white with a geometric display face, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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