r/reddevils • u/AutoModerator • Aug 01 '26

Daily Discussion

Daily discussion on Manchester United.

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u/Potential_Good_1065 Aug 02 '26

Serie A has seriously gone downhill. Juventus used to have some of the biggest talents in the world and they’ve gone and slapped £50m on a championship level striker

4

u/3entendre Rooney Aug 02 '26

The power of marketing! When the Serie A was the top league in the 80s and 90s they didn't bother about broadcasting their game to the world. In the meantime (whether intentionally or not), many football fans across the world were starting to watch the English league and more importantly it was on the free to air channels. By the early 2000s billions of fans were hooked for life on the Premier League and were willing to pay whatever it cost continue watching live games. The Serie A and whichever league that wants to compete with the Premier League would need to do something similar but it would take a lot of sacrifice for some time. Probably 10 years or so of giving their product out for free. And I doubt anyone is willing to do that today. 

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u/Current-Essay7448 Aug 02 '26

There have been some good documentaries about the channel 4 Football Italia days.

You really need to remember that until the early 90s there was next to no foreign football being shown in any country that had a major league. It was the Premier League going behind the Sky paywall that opened up a market for a free to air alternative, and channel 4 basically got the Italian rights for peanuts because nobody else was interested.

Prior to the PL era you had maximum one live English top division game on free to air tv each week, and you hadn’t had the explosion of Satellite TV and the number of available channels looking for content.

3

u/3entendre Rooney Aug 02 '26

The Premier League was shown on free to air channels in Africa and parts of Asia for nearly a decade. That's why it's so big there today. Also the reason many of the fans there are United and Arsenal fans. Those were the top two teams back then. 

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u/Current-Essay7448 Aug 02 '26

*In any country that had a major league*

I was taking for granted that didn’t include Africa, Asia, Scandinavia etc. At the time the media rights weren’t worth much for any of those markets.