Football and Football show: the Serie A and B all-star Game

The FIRST CHAPTER of this thesis intends to focus the attention on the historical development of football industry, an economic and sport activity that has a great impact on our social life and that in the last years has developed on the legal and technical point of view. On the professional point of view regulations have changed, not only of the game but of all the system: the market is replacing the football pitch in the choices of winning companies, as result from the promotions and relegations decided by the Federation for economic reasons of Alzano Virescit or Fiorentina, relegated in the 4th division in 2002, and then catch up again in the second one, the year after. Continuing comparing the changes, above all in the early ‘90s, between England and Italy, and the English model imported from Italians, until today’s company model.

The SECOND CHAPTER will analyse all the aspects of today’s football world. There will be a clear analysis of sport market in order to have a clear idea of where football companies operate. Then I will analyse in depth the marketing mix of a football company in order to know what are the objectives of a team, both on the mass and business market point of view. Surely, the major companies will be analysed by citing, for each lever of the mix, the most, or one of the most, important football team, even abroad. This will be done in order to clarify what are the differences between foreign companies and the Italians ones.
In the analysis of management aspects, I need to start with the main and central activity of a football company: the management of the team.
Among these aspects, there will be the analysis of the primary sources of profit: tickets. This source was the first some years ago, but now in the new advanced business model, is only a complement source to the others.
Another element of the analysis will be the sponsorship. International competition and the increasing importance of Italian championship have raised the number of those companies willing to invest in sport sponsorship.
Among the other elements, it will be given a look to TV rights. The impact on football with the coming of pay TV: pay-tv and pay-per-view have disturbed the football system, with new sources that not all the teams have correctly managed. Beside the old TV, there are new technologies (UMTS, Internet DSL and digital TV) which are having a great impact on social life and that sport companies are trying to use in order to discover the new opportunities of profit.
The merchandising is another very important issue for sport company. In Italy, merchandising is not so important today, but for English people has shown the importance in gaining new profits. This issue is correlated with the so called affinity marketing, which is the supply of extra-football services, through the branding that in England is of common use among Premier league clubs.
Another aspect of managing a football club is the ownership of the stadium. In England, almost all the clubs own the stadium and have many returns in profits from it. Italy has not yet begun on this aspect, and the only club owner of the stadium is Reggiana.

The THIRD CHAPTER will be the core part of this thesis. After having a clear idea of how the football market is, the need is to analyse the sport event market. I will give a look to all the most important sport evenst such as:
• UEFA Champions League tournament and final
• UEFA European Championship (2004 and 2008)
• FIFA World Championship (2002 and 2006)
• Campioni: il sogno!
• NBA all-star game

A special look will be given to the American sport market. The NBA and NFL are two of the most important sport championship that has conjugated the better of sport, show and business. Followed almost in every country of the world, the NBA is the most important sport championship also from the marketing point of view, where clubs are fighting to win the most exiting sport show of the world. The project to create an event in the middle of the season, on the example of NBA, has always fascinated me, but more since I went to Barcelona to work for NBA South Europe. The idea of an All Star Game for the Italian championship is the core part of this thesis, an event, a sport event. I will analyse all possibilities to make this happen, creating a new company that will take care of organising this event. All the aspect of marketing will be taken into serious attention, an accurate economic and sponsorship analysis.