Italian professional soccer lost €864 million ($944 million) during the 2022-23 season, despite record revenues, it has been revealed.
The FIGC, Italian soccer’s overall governing body, released its annual report covering the 2022-23 season across the various professional leagues, late last week.
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These losses represent a 37% reduction on the 2021-22 losses, with record revenue of €4.3 billion assisting in this respect. This represents an increase from 2021-22 revenues of 23%.
Half of the losses – €434 million – came through the 20 top-tier Serie A clubs.
In terms of the different revenue sectors, broadcast income came to €1.52 billion, up 21% from 2021-22.
Commercial income also rose significantly, up 34% to €930 million in 2022-23.
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By GlobalDataTotal ticketing revenue, meanwhile, came to €471 million, with the Serie A teams contributing €410.7 million of that (an increase of 88% year-on-year).
Of the broadcast and commercial revenue sectors, Serie A clubs brought in €1.47 billion of audiovisual income and €769.4 million of the sponsorship sector.
A better performance from Italian clubs in pan-European UEFA competitions in 2022-23 led to UEFA broadcast revenues increasing from €163 million to €344 million.
However, despite these increases amounting to record revenues, net debt amongst the top three soccer leagues in Italy still came to €4.66 billion.
These figures have been released as Serie A looks to tie up the final TV deals in foreign markets for its next rights cycle.
Over the last few weeks, deals have been unveiled in the UK (TNT Sports), US (CBS), Spain (DAZN), and Russia (Match TV).
Domestically, the league will be covered by DAZN and pay-TV’s Sky Italia for the next five seasons.
Serie B, however, faces the prospect of an initial TV blackout in 2024-25, as domestic rights for the next cycle have had to be re-tendered by the league.
The new Serie B season begins on August 16 with no broadcast package yet announced and a coverage blackout looming, a factor that will restrain the budgets of its 20 clubs as well as the ability of fans to watch their teams.
Last week, Serie B held a meeting of its 20 constituent clubs, with the members unanimously deciding to re-tender the rights, asking for a lower price (reportedly around $14.2 million per year), a far cry from the reported $30 million per season it was receiving from DAZN and Sky in the final year of the previous deal.
In the meantime, the league has also lobbied the FIGC national governing body for soccer to step in and ensure the financial security of Serie B and other non-elite soccer competitions in the country through the distribution of greater revenues.
In a statement, the league said it “understood the context of the market change, profoundly changed also due to the diversion of broadcasters' funds to the new international mega competitions.
“An impoverishment (not only economic) of the entire football system already widely predicted and announced for almost a year … It is essential at this point that the FIGC, unlike what has been done so far, acts as a spokesperson for the requests of all federal components.”
