Serie A, men’s Italian football’s top-flight, is home to some of the sport’s benchmark clubs for fan engagement and digital transformation. Among them, Juventus and AC Milan score maximum points for their digital and data maturity, according to N3XT Sports’ unique research methodology, putting them on par with English clubs Manchester City and Manchester United, to give examples, both of which dominated our Digital Transformation Regional Market Report 2024 | UK, published in May.
Italian giant Juventus presents a highly sophisticated fan experience, including access for its online subscribers to exclusive video content, membership options, and the MyGameRoom predictor fan league via their very own “This Is My Juve” fan dashboard. While Juventus provides fans access to every single digital touchpoint via a single sign-on (SSO), including the Juventus mobile app, ecommerce, and ticketing, the club is matched for its digital and data maturity by AC Milan, which also provides subscribers with a mix of web and mobile experiences, including in-app video-streaming and trivia.
Among Italy’s other benchmarks, Inter Milan, AS Roma, Lazio, and newly promoted Parma Calcio offer diverse direct-to-consumer (D2C) inventories. Nevertheless, they each own the capacity for expanding and improving their ability to collect fan data despite scoring among the competition’s top ten properties for their digital and data-maturity levels (see the Serie A Digital Transformation League Table below). This highlights the opportunity for Serie A clubs to expand their audience reach globally through the diversification of their digital portfolios and the consolidation of their respective fan-data lakes.
By comparison, Serie A owns distinct disparities between its leading clubs and those still in the early stages of their digital transformation journey. For example, outside the top ten clubs for digital transformation, Atalanta and Bologna both score 50 percent for the diversity of their D2C portfolios and 40 percent for their data-collection capabilities. While both clubs collect first-party fan data via a dedicated web login, mobile app, ecommerce, and ticketing, unlike the aforementioned benchmarks, neither Atalanta nor Bologna collect fan data via an over-the-top (OTT) streaming offering or fantasy/gaming product and have yet to centralize the fan experience via an SSO.
N3XT Sports research is carried out with the sole purpose of highlighting the benchmarks and opportunities for sports properties to digitalize and follows a unique methodology focused on the breadth of each entity’s digital portfolio, their ability to collect first-party fan data, and social media presence. Each category offers a maximum of ten available points (see graphic below), while the organization’s overall score represents an average of its three category scores converted into percentages. Download our latest industry and market reports to gain more insight into how we assess sports organizations via these three pillars.
DIGITAL ASSESSMENT | FAN-DATA DISPARITIES EXIST BETWEEN SERIE A CLUBS
According to our research, the vast majority of Serie A clubs (95 percent) collect first-party fan data, albeit as few as 65 percent do so via a dedicated web login and only 35 percent integrate an SSO. This is pertinent since seven in ten Serie A clubs score 70 percent or lower for their data collection; an indication that Italian football’s domestic club game isn’t fully leveraging its D2C capabilities to capture fan data, nor are its clubs optimizing the data that they have at their disposal.
By comparison, 95 percent of the clubs competing in the 2024/25 Premier League campaign operate a dedicated web login for their digital fans, whereas 75 percent collect first-party fan data via an SSO, according to our most recent research, highlighting the gulf in digital and data maturity between the two competitions. At federation level, the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) scores highly for both its digital and data capabilities, putting it among the leading national governing bodies (NGB) in European football.
Overall, the majority of Serie A clubs own a website (100 percent), a mobile app (85 percent), and ecommerce platform (95 percent). However, only four in five clubs collect first-party fan data via their web domain (80 percent), and fewer via their own mobile product (70 percent) and online shop (75 percent).
Meanwhile, three in five clubs collect fan data via their own ticketing service (60 percent) with many partnering with a third-party seller to manage ticket sales and data collection. Notably, only half provide either their own OTT product or a video-streaming function (50 percent), while fewer collect first-party video data (40 percent). As few as two in five Serie A clubs own a fantasy/gaming product (40 percent) of which one in five (20 percent) include fan-predictor games behind a subscription wall.
WHAT’S N3XT?
Whereas the most decorated clubs in Italian football show high digital and data maturity, the research highlights a clear opportunity to increase levels across the board, including the potential for clubs to expand their digital portfolios within a consolidated, omnichannel D2C experience. Our clients are exploring ways to do this within their own digital ecosystems and are demonstrating audience growth and retention, plus notable improvements to their productivity across all departments, as a direct result of their digital growth strategies.
Digital transformation is a vital process in the modern sports ecosystem. Although many rights holders and organizations experience similar challenges within their digitalization, particularly how their technological infrastructure is set up to optimize their data-collection capabilities, no sports property is alike, nor will they require exactly the same digital growth strategy.
By carrying out an initial assessment of their digital capabilities and how they are used to collect fan data, N3XT Sports provides an end-to-end digital transformation service, including strategy and operational support in addition to the development and implementation of each client’s digital roadmap.
Our team at N3XT Sports works tirelessly to develop and implement data and digital transformation strategies across a multitude of sports properties at federation level, competition level, and club level. To find out more about how N3XT Sports can serve your organization, fill out the form below, and we’ll be in touch. Our goal is to drive the digitalization of the sports industry and our clients.