Serie A’s Global Strategy: How Italian Football Is Building an International Business

The appointment of Giovanni Petronio looks like a routine executive hire. It is anything but.

Lega Serie A has appointed Petronio as its first Head of International Business Development, giving him responsibility for accelerating the league’s international growth, translating its strategy into market-specific plans and strengthening its presence outside Italy. Petronio joins after senior roles at Amazon, Nike and the Cortina Foundation.

The significance is not the person. It is the position.

Serie A is building a dedicated international business operation at a moment when European football is increasingly competing not just for viewers, but for global media revenue, sponsors, investment and cultural relevance.

The question is whether Italy's top flight can turn its enormous cultural appeal into a scalable international business.

Why Serie A Needs a New International Business Strategy

Serie A does not have an awareness problem. Its problem is commercial. Italian football has been a global cultural product for decades. Juventus, Inter, AC Milan, Roma and Napoli are recognised far beyond Italy, and the league carries a mix of history, cities, fashion, design and lifestyle that few sporting competitions can match.

Turning that recognition into revenue has proved harder. According to Reuters, citing UEFA data, Serie A's international commercial unit generates around €250 million a year, only a fraction of what its two closest rivals earn abroad.

For comparison, the Premier League earns an estimated £2.1 billion (around €2.5 billion) per season from international media rights in its 2025–28 cycle. LaLiga's international deal for 2019–24 guaranteed €4.485 billion over five seasons, or close to €900 million a season.

Serie A's figure also includes sponsorship and betting income, so the gap in pure broadcasting rights is even wider. The market is not helping. Reuters reports that foreign broadcasters' interest in Serie A has weakened, partly because the expanded UEFA Champions League now fills the calendar with premium European football.

This is why international growth has become a strategic priority. The league needs to extract more value from audiences that already know Italian football and turn them into customers, partners and commercial markets. Petronio's mandate therefore goes beyond selling television rights: it is about developing the markets themselves.

Serie A Is Moving From Selling Rights to Developing Markets

The traditional international model for a football league is simple: sell the broadcasting rights, find a local media partner, collect the revenue. The modern model asks for much more. A league can develop local sponsorships, produce market-specific content, stage events, form commercial partnerships, build grassroots programmes and use its clubs and players to establish a permanent presence.

Serie A appears to be heading in that direction. Petronio has described his role as translating the league's strategic priorities into market-specific plans and working with clubs and partners on its next phase of international growth. The wording suggests that international markets are no longer treated merely as territories where matches are broadcast, but as businesses to be built.

Serie A’s International Media Rights Are the Economic Test

The clearest measure of Serie A's ambition is the planned sale of a minority stake in its international commercial venture: a new company holding the league's overseas broadcasting rights, international sponsorship and betting-related business. With around €250 million in annual revenue and, according to earlier Reuters estimates, roughly €200 million in core earnings, it brings several international income streams together on a single platform.

The process drew around ten bidders in September 2026, with JP Morgan advising on the sale. In mid-October, Reuters reported that New York-based Avenue Capital had emerged as the frontrunner.

Avenue is targeting a 10% stake for €320 million, which would value the venture at €3.2 billion. A joint bid from Carlyle and Italian investment firm Nextalia offered around €650 million for roughly 17%, implying a valuation of about €3.75 billion.

Avenue was not the highest bidder. Its offer led because it was structured as straightforward common equity, while some rivals sought protections on future cash flows. The headline valuation is only part of the picture; who carries the risk and who holds a claim on future revenue matter just as much.

For Serie A, the deal could bring fresh capital and international commercial expertise without giving up control of the competition. For investors, it offers exposure to the global monetisation of one of football's most recognisable brands.

Any agreement needs the backing of at least 14 of the league's 20 clubs. When Reuters reported on the bids on October 16, no final decision had been made.

The financial target sets the bar. Serie A aims to triple its international media rights revenue by 2030 compared with the 2021–24 cycle, when overseas broadcasting deals brought in €657 million in total, or roughly €219 million per season. Tripling that means approaching €650 million a season, a level that cannot be reached by renegotiating TV contracts alone.

This is where Petronio's role fits. If investors increasingly see the international business as an asset with value of its own, his job is to build the commercial infrastructure behind it, not simply to raise the league's profile abroad.

The United States Has Become a Strategic Market for Serie A

The United States shows this shift most clearly. Serie A has invested in building its own presence there, including through its New York office, rather than relying solely on broadcasters to distribute its matches.

The opportunity is real. Football's American audience is growing, and the 2026 FIFA World Cup accelerated attention around the sport. But the Premier League arrived earlier and holds a considerable lead.

Availability alone is therefore not enough. Serie A needs to give American fans reasons to follow the league throughout the week, not only on matchday.

The latest rights deals show both progress and limits. In September 2026, Telemundo acquired the exclusive US Spanish-language rights to Serie A, the Coppa Italia and the Supercoppa Italiana for three seasons, from 2026/27 to 2028/29, across broadcast, cable, streaming and digital platforms. English-language rights remain with CBS Sports, which has carried the league since 2021.

The Telemundo deal gives Serie A access to Hispanic consumers, one of the most important football audiences in the country. Yet the league shares that platform with the Premier League, the Bundesliga and, from 2027/28, UEFA's club competitions. On the same channel, Italian football has to fight for attention, which is exactly why distribution must now be converted into deeper engagement.

Italian Football Has a Commercial Advantage Other Leagues Cannot Copy

Here Serie A has an unusual opportunity: it can sell Italy, not only football.

Italian football is tied to a much wider ecosystem of global brands and cultural associations, from fashion, food and design to architecture, tourism, automotive manufacturing and industrial innovation. Few other competitions can use their international audience as a platform for promoting an entire national economy.

The league already does this through Campioni del Made in Italy, an initiative developed with Italy's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAECI) and the Italian Trade Agency (ICE). The project links all 20 Serie A clubs and their players to the industrial and cultural identities of their regions. In internationally distributed videos, footballers introduce audiences to local manufacturing sectors, traditional industries and Italian companies, and the content travels through the league's international broadcasting network.

Two episodes show how it works. In 2025, Udinese midfielder Sandi Lovrić featured in an episode on Udine and the Friuli region, focused on Italian furniture design and manufacturing. In June 2026, Inter's Ange-Yoan Bonny appeared in a Milan episode highlighting textile machinery engineering and the city's industrial expertise.

In this model, Serie A becomes a promotional channel for Italian industry, while participating businesses and institutions reach an international audience through football. The opportunity extends to trade fairs, business partnerships and promotional events, where Serie A ambassadors can meet companies, distributors and potential partners. The league has already supported Italian brands at events such as Vinitaly USA.

A Premier League match can sell English football. Serie A can potentially sell an entire idea of Italy.

Football will not automatically generate extra export revenue for Italian companies. What Serie A offers is an established international distribution platform through which Italian industries, brands and destinations can reach audiences they would otherwise struggle to engage. That is a form of brand equity a competitor cannot easily replicate.

Why Serie A Cannot Simply Copy the Premier League

The Premier League remains the obvious benchmark. Its international success rests on decades of aggressive global distribution, strong club brands, localised content and a highly effective commercial ecosystem. Copying that model, however, would mean competing on the Premier League's strongest ground.

Serie A needs a different proposition, and it already has one: a distinctive cultural identity that English football cannot offer.

The strategic question, then, is not how to make Serie A look more like the Premier League. It is how to make the rest of the world value what makes Serie A different. That is a far more interesting commercial challenge.

What Giovanni Petronio’s Role Says About the Future of Serie A

Creating a dedicated international business development role shows how football leagues' priorities are changing. International growth is no longer purely a broadcasting function; it now sits where media, sponsorship, content, investment, technology, tourism and brand strategy meet.

Petronio's background fits that brief. Nike and Amazon both treat global markets as connected ecosystems rather than as collections of separate territories. At the Milano Cortina Foundation, where he led partnerships and client engagement, he worked on the commercial and international side of the 2026 Winter Olympics and Paralympics.

Serie A now needs to apply that kind of thinking to a permanent global property. It has the audience, the clubs and the cultural identity. What it still lacks is a business model that connects all three.

The Bigger Question: Can Serie A Turn Italian Football Into a Global Platform?

The next stage of Serie A's international expansion will not be measured only by how many countries show its matches. It will be measured by how much business the league can build around those audiences: more international sponsorship, more valuable media rights, more local partnerships, content and events, and potentially direct outside investment in the international business itself.

That is why Petronio's appointment matters. It is a small organisational decision that reflects a much larger shift in how Serie A sees itself. For decades, it was one of the world's great football competitions. Now it is trying to become a global football business built on the cultural power of Italy.

The Premier League built one of the most successful global sports products in the world. Serie A's opportunity lies elsewhere: a global football product built around one of the world's most recognisable national brands.

The world already knows Serie A. The test now is whether the league can turn that recognition into a global business.