RIVISTA DI ISSN 1825-6678 DIRITTO ED ECONOMIA DELLO SPORT Vol. VII, Fasc. 2, 2011 THE ORGANIZATION AND ECONOMICS OF ITALIAN SERIE A: A BRIEF OVERALL VIEW by Alessandro Baroncelli * and Raul Caruso ** SUMMARY: Introduction – 1. The Institutions of Italian Football – 2. Ownership and listing of Italian Serie A Teams – 3. Management of stadia – 4. Some Economics of Italian Football League – 5. Costs out of control. Financial fragility of Italian teams – Conclusions – References JEL CODES : L83 Introduction Italian football industry is at a crossroads. In fact, the football industry in Italy reached the aggregate value of Euro 3.6 billion. 1 This is in line with a growth registered in Europe. The European football market grew by 4% to Euro 16.3 billion in 2009/10 whereas Italian Serie A’s revenues increased only by 3% to Euro 1,532m. 2 In fact, football is the most popular sport in Italy, with 31 millions of fans and 1.2 millions of active footballers. Moreover, 9 million of Italians regularly watch matches at stadiums, and 20 million read about football in newspapers and 25 million who follow football on television or radio. 3 It has been estimated that ____________________ * Full Professor of Business Management at Catholic University of the Sacred Heart; Director of MIB Master in International Business and of the Monitor on Football clubs’ Brand Management – ICRIM; alessandro.baroncelli@unicatt.it ** Senior Researcher at Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Institute of Economic Policy, Milan. raul.caruso@unicatt.it, an earlier version of this article is published as A. BARONCELLI, R. CARUSO, The Organization and Economics of Italian Top Football, in Gammelsaeter H., Senaux B., (eds.), The Organisation and Governance of Top Football across Europe, Routledge, London, 2011. 1 Source: Report Calcio 2011 2 source: Football Money League 2011, Deloitte 3 Source: Lega Calcio.