«Are We Taking This Challenge Seriously?»

A lecture at the State Management University (GUU) was given by the director of marketing department of the Italian soccer league Serie A Fabio Santoro to the students of «Sport Industry Management» RMA professional retraining program.

During the course of the lecture, the specialist spoke about the current structure of the league, about the decision making mechanisms employed among the various sports clubs/members of the league, as well as touched on several aspects of tournament organizing, managing the broadcast licencing, and the relationship between the league and it's sponsors.

Mr. Santoro paid particular attention to the issues of popularization of Italian soccer outside Italian borders. Having in that regard mentioned the recently conducted match of Italian Super Cup which was played in Beijing, he pointed out the sheer financial benefit associated with it.

«The next two upcoming Super Cup games will also be taking place in China, – says Fabio Santoro. – The three year long contract is estimated at 10 million euros. That's how much should be earned by the league. The individual clubs-members of the current tournament have received from the Chinese 2 million euros each. Plus the receiving side had agreed to cover all the expenses associated with hosting of the games».

«You've got to understand one thing, – emphasized Fabio Santoro, – that such countries and regions as China, is an enormous market, including the broadcasting aspect of it, which we could and should take further advantage of. Unfortunately, we – and I mean the majority of clubs members of the league – are not taking this challenge seriously, we aren't thinking strategically enough, and as a result we are undervalueing the profits that could be generated from additional broadcast licencing arrangements. In that respect, I believe we should learn from the NBA experience, which in order to promote their association had given the Chinese the free temporary licence to broadcast all of it's games. Those efforts in turn had increased their exposure and popularity and eventually had created an additional avenues of revenue for them», – summarized the Italian specialist.