The decline of Italian football in clubs: salaries costs rise, TV revenues go down

And now let’s look at the Italian model. Of why it does not work internationally. With a national at risk of elimination from world qualifications for the third consecutive time. And with club teams that In Europe this year they came out prematurely from direct elimination matches, with the exception of Inter, however, overwhelmed in the Champions League final by the Paris Saint Germain. To understand what is not working perhaps we should start from the numbers that never lie. In analysis we make ourselves help from the Deloitte consultancy firm who has just drawn up a study on revenues and the operating costs of the European alloys by comparing their management models. So we find that in Serie A the revenues of the matches in the last season have increased by 2% At around 400 million euros overall, while the average of the league appearances grew by 5% to 30,916 from 29,537.

The flexion of television revenues

However, television revenues decreased by 2% to 1.5 billion euros, partly due to the lower level of distribution by UEFA, Given the overall weaker performance in the field of Italian clubs in UEFA Champions League. At the same time commercial revenues have increased by 9% to 1 billion euros, With the strong influence of the new sponsorship agreements of the Serie A clubs owned North American and the increase in merchandising sales. The five Italian clubs under American property they recorded an average increase in commercial revenues of 26%while the other clubs have increased commercial revenues on average by 7%.

Players’ wages increase

Too bad that the costs of the wages of the players 4% increased to 2 billion euros (average 98 million euros per team). Despite this, the ratio between salaries and aggregate revenues remained constant quite constant at 68% (2022/23: 66%), allowing Serie A clubs to return an aggregate operational profit (40 million euros) for the second consecutive year and, together with an expense for the transfers of the most conservative players in recent years, has facilitated a financial situation and more stable prospects with submitted losses reduced to around 300 million euros (22% decrease compared to 400 million in 2022/23).

Business models

What is certain is that football is now a real industry and begins to attract those interested in making profit by adopting management logics not far from those of traditional companies, such as private equity funds. However, the management models that remain in many cases often anchored to the model of President-Padrone that deals with the team in a personalistic way and with little attention to the governance structure must be updated. One of the most interesting themes is the presence, in the professional sports sector, of subjects who maximize profit (profit-maximizer) and of those which maximize the utility (utility-maximizer). In the sports field, the first model is typical of US sports where professional basketball, football, hockey and baseball alloys are money machines that count on the development of global brands.

Who maximizes the usefulness and who profit

In Italy, however, we have always been often accustomed to second type sports entrepreneurs who maximize their usefulness through the investment in football and the victories and notoriety that follow. The wealthy industrialist uses his personal resources not taking care of the economic result and losses accumulate allowing him to improve his reputation with positive effects in the main business. Sport becomes a monetary investment « to lose » with indirect positive effects and this has limited greater professionalization of the sector to the detriment of organizations with better skills and modern management methods. THEThe model of the « utility maximizer », however, seems to be started at sunset and the poor financial sustainability of the traditional management models of Italian football testifies to the need for a change of pace (We wrote here through an accurate analysis).

The football market in Europe

The European football market has however recorded a record turnover of 38 billion euros in the 2023/24 season, with a growth of 8% (35.3 billion euros in 2022/23). The « five great » European championships – Premier League, Bundesliga, Liga, Serie A and Ligue 1 – have generated revenues for 20.4 billion euroswith a 4%increase, exceeding the
First time the threshold of 20 billion euros. According to Deloitte’s analysis the Ranking of the revenues of the top five European alloys see The premier in the lead, which touches the 7.3 billion euros in turnover, the Serie A exceeds 2.9 billion, the Bundesliga reaches 3.97 billion, the Liga at 3.76 billion, Ligue 1 in France at 2.5 billion.