Serie A’s London Takeover Underlines League’s Push to Bring Fans Closer to Calcio

Serie A has grown used to the waves of British talent invading its shores through the years. From Platt to Gazza, Souness to McTominay, numerous stars have headed to Italy to bring a taste of the UK to southern Europe. On Saturday evening the crusade to return the favour got underway.

In a small corner of east London, Italy’s top flight took over. Attendees – around 700 in number – were offered a first-hand glimpse into calcio as the league trophy arrived in Shoreditch and matches were played on the big screen. Pizza replaced pork scratchings, and aperol spritz and Peroni were served amid a sea of Serie A shirts old and new.

There was even Azzurri royalty present, with former national team striker Christian Vieri taking part in a Q&A. All of this is the first step in the league’s drive to bring the action closer to its fans.

“We have made a brand new decision for the distribution of the Serie A games in the UK and Ireland,” Anna Guarnerio, Serie A’s head of international media rights, told Destination Calcio.

“It’s the first time in the world we are distributing directly B2C (business-to-consumer), meaning directly from Serie A to the fans, and so we have the possibility to watch the specific match. So a match pass, a club pass, a season pass.”

As fans watched the action taking place hundreds of miles away – as Juventus saw off Udinese and Milan squeezed past Monza – the decision to sharpen their focus on supporters beyond their borders appeared vindicated amid the cheers and gazes glued to the screens.

The business-to-consumer element allows Serie A to develop a stronger relationship with their devotees abroad and a deeper understanding of how they consume Italy’s top-tier.

This is being explored with One Football, a digital site offering fans a range of packages to watch the action. Individual matches cost £4.99, while a season ticket to follow the matches of one particular team can be bought for £79.99. Want to watch the whole lot? Then every match can be yours for just £99.99.

“For us, our wealth is the fans,” explains Guarnerio. “It’s the first time that Serie A is selling rights all over the world in-house. 

“The moment you distribute directly, you start getting more direct feedback. So you know what your fans need. And what a fan in one market needs is not the same as another market needs. 

“So we are working a lot in order to go beyond the 90 minutes of the live games and to provide the behind the scenes, the passion at the stadium, interviews with the players.”

London is just their first port of call as Serie A looks to connect with fanbases across the globe. They reached capacity on registration for their flagship UK event, while the league’s reach was on full display. Fiorentina tops mixed with Genoa shirts, while Milan supporters brought the noise and Juventus goals were greeted with huge cheers as the action played out on a massive screen under the archways.

“There was a good mix of British people and Italian people living here,” says Guarnerio. “The thing I found they all have in common is the big passion they have – not just for their teams, but also in general for Italian football. 

“There’s a willingness to be connected with Italy because there was pizza, there was ice cream, all making them feel a little bit of what Italy represents.

“Our clubs are helping us a lot. They have switched mentality and they’ve understood that out there abroad there’s a full world of fans they need to be in closer contact with.”

After conquering a corner of London, Serie A now has its sights set on its next target. The desire to get closer to its fans means the league are serious about extending their reach far beyond Italian shores, and European, too.

“This is just the first initiative we are making of this size, but this is the start of the new way of Serie A,” says Guarnerio.

“The [next] upcoming event will be on the 23rd of November. We will have a simultaneous watch party in New York and in Dubai. So same match to connect two fanbases from two completely different regions in the world. 

“Of course, what they have in common is the passion for Serie A and Italian football. So there will be interaction between the two places where at the same time they will be watching the same match. It’s a sense of community. It’s a sense of participation and it’s an identity that people are recognising them in the values that Serie A represents and that football represents.”

All of this is working towards their long-term goal, tapping into the success of other sporting products in becoming a truly global entity. To do so, Serie A know exactly who must be at the heart of it.

“Our vision is to reach out, get one step closer to the fans,” says Guarnerio.

“[We want to] be relevant for our fans, and not just be the one size fits all. To have a direct conversation with the fans – not just from us to the fans, but vice versa, in order to make the league that they would like to see.”