In the global football and betting industry, it is common for betting companies to sponsor sports clubs, especially in Europe's top leagues.
In the previous article on Premier League jersey sponsorship, PASA mentioned that when operators choose to sponsor Serie A clubs, they must carefully weigh the pros and cons.
Although Serie A is one of the top five leagues, just like the Premier League, La Liga, Ligue 1, and Bundesliga, the trend of betting sponsors reducing cooperation with Serie A clubs is particularly evident.
The reasons are complex and varied, covering legal regulation, market size, and some deeper internal reasons.
Today PASA will analyze in depth, hoping this article can provide more applicable guidelines for operators when choosing Serie A clubs as sponsorship partners.
1. Italian Betting Regulation
With the rapid development of the betting industry globally, there has been an increase in societal attention to corporate social responsibility (CSR).
In recent years, the opposition to betting advertising has been growing among the public in various countries, with many consumers and social organizations believing that betting ads have a negative impact on teenagers and vulnerable groups, potentially leading to gambling addiction and other social issues.
Against this backdrop, the Italian government has adopted a stricter attitude in this area, especially regarding betting advertising and sponsorship.
In 2018, Italy passed legislation called the "Dignity Decree" (Decreto Dignità), aimed at limiting the impact of betting advertising, especially among the youth.
According to this decree, starting from January 2019, all forms of betting advertising, including TV, radio, internet, and sports sponsorship, will be prohibited.
This means that betting operators in Italy are severely restricted in advertising exposure, and gaining brand exposure through traditional sponsorship has become virtually impossible.
Social media platform X (Twitter) was once fined 1.35 million euros for violating the Italian advertising and communications regulator (AGCOM)'s gambling advertising regulations.
YouTube, Google, Meta, and Twitch were earlier fined for violating Article 9 of the Italian "Dignity Decree" on the prohibition of gambling advertising.
Due to the enactment of the "Dignity Decree," the highly regulated environment has made betting companies more cautious in choosing sponsorship partners.
Continuing to invest substantial funds to support Serie A clubs is clearly an unwise choice when advertising and sponsorship cannot achieve marketing goals.
In March this year, a betting company Betsson announced its willingness to provide up to 30 million euros in sponsorship fees to Inter Milan, hoping to become the team's new season home jersey sponsor. However, due to the regulatory restrictions of the "Dignity Decree," Betsson could not proceed with this sponsorship.
Currently, Inter Milan is facing a tough choice—choosing a suitable jersey sponsor for the next season.
Although the American streaming service company Paramount+ became Inter Milan's sponsor this season, this partnership can only last for one season. It is revealed that after the contract with Paramount+ expires, the two parties will not renew.
Therefore, Inter Milan is actively seeking new partners to seek more economic benefits.
Betsson's generous offer undoubtedly attracted Inter Milan's attention. However, due to the provisions of the "Dignity Decree," Betsson cannot serve as Inter Milan's home jersey sponsor. This means that even if Inter Milan accepts Betsson's proposal, Inter Milan cannot bring sponsorship to Betsson through traditional methods and will also face more severe penalties.
Despite this, the management of Inter Milan is optimistic about this deal. Betsson also looks forward to Inter Milan, along with the official Serie A league and other Italian football clubs, lobbying the government to change this regulation, allowing betting companies the opportunity to support the team.
But as of now, this form of sponsorship is at a stage restricted by regulations; it is precisely the restrictive power of Italy's "Dignity Decree" that makes many betting companies hesitant to sponsor the Serie A league.
2. Market Size and Commercial Value
Although Serie A has a long history and is one of the top five football leagues globally, its influence in the global market has declined compared to top leagues like the Premier League and La Liga.
According to data from FootyStats: The top 5 leagues with the highest viewership per match
1. Premier League - 643 million viewers.
2. La Liga - 76 million viewers.
3. Ligue 1 - 10.5 million viewers.
4. Mexican League - 3.7 million viewers.
5. Serie A - 2 million viewers.
Looking at the data, Serie A's viewership has fallen to the bottom, Serie A is significant for the older generation of viewers and is called the "Little World Cup" by them, but as the new generation of viewers takes over the market, Serie A seems unable to keep up with the pace of the times.
And among the top five leagues, only Serie A's revenue is declining, with total revenue down 7%, only a meager 2.4 billion euros. This is only 400 million euros higher than the last-place Ligue 1, which is in an upward phase.
This is truly disappointing, it seems that Serie A's commercial value has fallen into a dilemma from which it cannot extricate itself, PASA calls it Serie A's "dark cycle."
Here's a side note, in the statistics of viewership numbers, we did not see the Bundesliga, but the viewership of the Bundesliga may only be suitable for Germany, where football is relatively pure;
At the same time, the Bundesliga is almost dominated by one team, Bayern's star players directly affect the data level of the Bundesliga. But with this year's championship by Leverkusen, a turning point in the Bundesliga market is coming, which may change the situation, this point PASA leaves a suspense, to be discussed later.
Despite Serie A having well-known clubs such as Juventus, AC Milan, and Inter Milan, the overall league's commercial value and international audience coverage have begun to shrink.
And when betting companies choose sponsorship targets, they tend to invest in leagues and clubs with greater international influence and commercial value, expecting a larger market return, because Serie A is also gradually being abandoned.
3. Deep Reasons—Italian Football Management Policies and Football Corruption
The declining influence of Serie A is primarily due to the sharp reduction in commercial revenue, making it difficult for teams to operate, forcing them to give up signing star players and also making it difficult to retain star players.
Events like Cristiano Ronaldo joining Juventus are big news from 6 years ago, and in recent years, they have been close to none.
This has put Serie A teams into a vicious cycle—unable to introduce strong players, unable to retain star players, competitiveness worsens, league attention decreases, and Serie A's commercial value gradually declines.
The root cause of this dilemma is actually Serie A's biggest problem—Italian political factors.
Of the 20 teams in Serie A, only Juventus owns its stadium, other teams rent stadiums from local governments. In the past, team operations relied mostly on stadium ticket revenue, but how can clubs without their stadiums increase income?
Why don't other Serie A teams build their stadiums?
1. First, over 60% of Italian teams operate at a loss, making it difficult for them to invest funds to rebuild stadiums. Renting government stadiums is cheap and practical, these small and medium teams can only choose to rent government stadiums;
2. Coupled with the rigid policies of the Italian government, which do not allow land privatization, all stadiums can only be state-owned. Juventus also only reasonably used policy loopholes to obtain a 99-year right to use the stadium, including Inter Milan, AC Milan, Napoli, Fiorentina, and other clubs have applied to local governments to build their stadiums, but in the end, they were all rejected by local governments for various reasons. After all, the government can gain substantial income by renting stadiums to these teams, local governments are not willing to easily give up this piece of cake;
3. The corruption and incompetence of the Italian Football Association, Italian football in recent years has been inseparable from scandals, such as the telephone gate incident, fake accounts gate incident, financial fraud incident, etc., all of which show the corruption and incompetence of the Italian Football Association, but the reform of the Italian Football Association has not received enough support, Italian football can only degenerate step by step.
4. As Serie A becomes more and more depressed, the income of the teams also becomes less and less, and the pressure on the teams to build stadiums at this time is very great.
This is also what we mentioned earlier, the manifestation of Serie A's "dark cycle."
At the same time, due to the incompetence of the Football Association, Serie A is extremely unfriendly to the vast Asian market.
Premier League matches, many matches are completed in the first half of the night in the Asian region, precisely because of this, the Premier League has attracted a large number of Asian fans.
But many Asian fans feel that Serie A does not care about the Asian market and the feelings of Asian fans.
In the past, the Premier League has always focused on the European and American markets, with afternoon and evening matches evenly distributed in the schedule.
But in the new century, the Premier League has increasingly realized the importance of the Asian market, the Premier League has been continuously developing and catering to Asian fans, and when the time is ripe, the Premier League began to adjust the time, tilting a lot of resources towards the Asian market.
Therefore, the Premier League has cultivated many fans in Asia and has become the most popular football league in Asia, Serie A has not done as well as the Premier League in this regard.
But as the Italian economy declines, government officials' lack of progress and corruption and incompetence, Serie A's audience has gradually dwindled, and the overseas market has also continuously shrunk.
This has caused Serie A to focus more attention on its own country. But this undoubtedly exacerbates Serie A's dark cycle—there are not many viewers in the evening, and even fewer viewers watch the matches in the afternoon, which leads to broadcasters being willing to pay less for broadcasting rights.
The decline of Serie A can be said to be all-encompassing, due to the existence of the "dark cycle," Serie A's market size and commercial value are increasingly shrinking, coupled with the strict restrictions of the Italian betting law "Dignity Decree," directly leading many betting operators to shy away from this market.
Conclusion
The global betting market competition is increasingly fierce, with the rise of online betting platforms causing significant changes in the market landscape.
Betting companies need more accurate and effective marketing strategies, and traditional sports sponsorship is no longer the only option.
Especially in an environment like Serie A, where policies are variable and the market is unstable, betting companies often adopt more conservative investment strategies.
By comparison, betting companies may prefer to invest resources in more stable and predictable markets, such as the Premier League mentioned in our special topic.
However, despite this, Serie A is still a market with great potential, which is also the reason why Betsson is so obsessed with sponsoring Inter Milan;
With changes in policies and market environments, the cooperative relationship between betting companies and Serie A clubs may welcome new development opportunities in the future. But this point, before Serie A's "dark cycle" is broken, operators still need to be cautious.
If a landmark event occurs, PASA will be the first to track and analyze for everyone, continuing to unearth the value of Serie A.
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