Marketing masterclass: How Serie A plans to reclaim global glory

Can Serie A regain its position as the top football league in the world? That is the story we look at in the latest episode of the Business Leader podcast.

Serie A was the top football league in the world in the 1980s and 1990s. The Italian league was where players wanted to play and what fans wanted to watch. Diego Maradona, Marco van Basten and Roberto Baggio were superstars and playing in Serie A.  

But in recent years that has not been the case. Serie A has been overtaken by other leagues, notably the English Premier League. 

Now, however, it is fighting back. It is doing so by focusing on marketing and trying to expand its audience around the world.

In the Business Leader podcast, Michele Ciccarese, the commercial and marketing director of Serie A, explains the story. These are the key pillars of his strategy: 

Go where the customers are

Serie A is determined not to focus on just its loyal fans in Italy. It wants to grow its revenues and TV audience globally. So, it has opened offices around the world to expand its commercial partnerships. For example, it has established a US office in New York. 

Seek partnerships

Serie A’s partners include media companies that broadcast the matches. However, it is also looking to do promotional work with organisations that have similar expansion ambitions, such as the NBA, the American basketball league.

Understand where your target audience is and how they are spending their time

Ciccarese says that Serie A does not see its competition as other football leagues, but as anything that takes up someone’s time. So it has sought to understand what its target market is interested in so it can work out how to get them to spend time engaging with Serie A, such as watching matches.

Learn from what others do

“The very first thing that we did was a full deep-dive and benchmarking on all the other top leagues,” Ciccarese says. “We looked at the best practices, such as how the American leagues create a proper collective approach (among all the teams and stakeholders).” 

Serie A is making progress – on and off the pitch. For example, in the three major European club competitions – the Uefa Champions League, Europa League and Conference League – Italian clubs have appeared in five of the six finals over the last two years.