SOCIOS.COM DELVES INTO FOOTBALL FANDOM IN ITALY
Last year, we commissioned Nielsen Sports & Entertainment to provide an in-depth look at football fandom in 6 key markets — Brazil, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom. We wanted to understand the potential for Socios.com amongst football fans, but we also wanted to take a closer look at the football landscape including how fans interact with their clubs. We surveyed 2793 football fans in total (541 in Italy), all of whom support a football team.
In this article, we take a look at the findings from Italy, one of the most successful national teams in the history of the World Cup having won four titles. The country is also home to one of the most popular football leagues worldwide thanks to teams such as Juventus and A.C Milan.
The popularity of football in Italy is large with 71% of the entire country a fan of football, with 48% claiming that football is their favorite sport above any other. The family influence is also strong in Italy with 39% saying that a parent had introduced them to their favorite club, while 22% said that it was a parent who introduced them to the game.
In terms of engaging with football, more than 90% of fans in the six markets engaged with football through watching it on TV with 61% of Italian football fans expressing the same sentiment. 90% said that they supported one club above all others.
The top five clubs supported in Italy are:
Juventus: 40%
Inter Milan: 14%
AC Milan: 13%
Napoli: 10%
AS Roma: 7%
When it comes to engaging with football clubs, fans aged between 16 and 34 are significantly more likely to engage with their clubs through team pages, across both Facebook and Instagram. In the case of Italy, 43% of fans use social media to access club news; 40% use it to get scores and results.
Over 90% of fans in the six markets looked to engage with football through watching it on the TV; that number was 61% amongst Italian fans with 33% preferring to watch the match in a stadium.
Some interesting insights emerge when fans are questioned about their clubs, with 69% of Italian fans thinking that football clubs are too focused on making money.
When asked if they would be interested to vote on club decisions, nearly ⅓ of fans across the six markets like to offer their opinions on how clubs should be run; of that percentage, nearly 60% do so via social media. 63% of fans believe that fans should have a say in how clubs are run, while 2/3s of fans are interested in voting to influence club decisions. More specifically, in Italy, 64% of fans would be interested in voting on club decisions and this equates to 16.6m fans.
In terms of club perceptions, 63% of Italian fans believe the primary role of a football club is to keep fans happy and 65% believe their only goal should be to win trophies. 35% believe that clubs could engage with them on other platforms and 53% believe new technology could improve the fan experience. Almost 70% believe clubs focus too much on making money and half of fans believe clubs could engage better by keeping ticket prices stable.
However, despite their passion, 15% of fans felt alienated by their club and 18% felt that their views were not valued. 19% believe fans should be given more autonomy and there’s demand for fans to have more influence over club decisions — 45% of respondents.
When it comes to how much Italian fans were willing to spend on fan tokens to be given the right to vote on club decisions, respondents said they would spend €10.
