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If you ask 100 people what the main problem with Serie A is, I think an overwhelming majority would say the TV rights revenue. While it risks becoming a scapegoat to explain all of the league’s problems (not a healthy mindset), it’s hard to argue against its importance. So, how do you fix it?
Gerry Cardinale is one of the Serie A club owners who have talked about this the most in various interviews over the years. He’s obviously not the first one to point out the discrepancy with the Premier League, but he’s one of the few who actually have a solution in mind.
That said, due to what often ends up being shallow interviews, it can be difficult to decipher what he means in concrete terms.
Therefore, during my research for this article, I listened to many (and I mean many) interviews with the Milan owner, attempting to understand the core of his solution. Partly because I wanted to explain it to you, but also because I really wanted to find out myself. I think I got there in the end, also finding some similarities with the Napoli owner, Aurelio De Laurentiis.
Reminding ourselves of the obvious
I will try to be brief in this section, mainly because it’s been said so many times before, but it’s always good to remind ourselves of the actual figures. In the infographic below, you can see the differences in domestic as well as international TV rights revenue for Serie A, Premier League, Bundesliga and La Liga. Clearly, there is one big winner in the room.
DAZN and Sky Italia are still the rights holders in Italy, having agreed to share the duties, while it varies from country to country on the international front. The fact that the Premier League makes over three times as much as Serie A (!) tells you everything you need to know. It’s so hard to compete with that and in many ways, we are facing an uphill battle.
The interesting thing to note is that the Premier League actually makes more from the international rights than the domestic ones, which also goes to show how bad Lega Serie A are at selling the product abroad. It has previously been said that they would like to reach around €400m, but in truth, this seems like a very ambitious goal in today’s market. Or at least considering how they currently sell the product.
The domestic deal will run until 2029, so including the 2028-29 season, but there could possibly be earlier changes on the international front. In any case, this timeframe will allow Lega Serie A and the clubs to sit down and really think about the future. Something has to be done and evidently, the old model of doing things won’t work.
Ever since Cardinale bought Milan, taking over from Elliott Management, he has made it clear that all of the Serie A clubs are undermonetised…
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