Italian Football

Abstract

The Italian football industry has recently grown at a pace that was never experienced before, boosted by the entrance of pay TV into the business. Nevertheless, Italian football has recently sunk into a deep financial crisis, which has caused bankruptcy for some clubs and strong downsizing for others. At the end of the 2002-2003 football season, the aggregate net loss for Serie A was larger than [UNKNOWN] 400 million, more than one third of total turnover. In the present article, the authors analyze some data from Italian football, discuss the reasons for the financial crisis, and propose some remedies.

Europe’s Elite Football: Financial Growth, Sporting Success, Transfer Investment, and Private Majority Investors

“…While sports economists tend to agree that sporting success is the primary driver of financial success, researchers and practitioners have also recognized a growing importance of brand investments [3,35]. Gladden and Milne [13] show that brand equity has a significant positive impact on merchandise revenues of American major league clubs.…”

Are subjective evaluations biased by social factors or connections? An econometric analysis of soccer referee decisions

“…According to Baroncelli and Lago (2006), the total revenues generated by soccer in Italy are 4.2 billion euro; moreover, about 25 million Italians follow soccer on television and 8 million watch matches at stadiums. Hot debates on television and newspapers, as well as between opposing supporters, are triggered by crucial referee decisions.…”

Intellectual Capital and Business Performance in Professional Football Clubs: Evidence From a Longitudinal Analysis

“…A possible explanation for this is that many clubs do not necessarily compete with the realistic expectation to win the championship or to rank in the first few top positions; and hence their choices in terms of best player retention and players' trading policies do not necessarily seem consistent with the objective of win maximization. In fact, as Baroncelli and Lago (2006) pointed out, club objectives within the Serie A championship are quite different for leading-edge clubs on one hand and small-and medium-sized clubs on the other hand. If for leading clubs sporting results can be expressed in terms of maximizing victories or higher-ranking (in the national championship as well as in European Leagues) sporting results of small-and medium-sized clubs can be more realistically expressed in terms of their having managed to remain in Serie A.…”