ROMA – Serie B is at a crossroads. The clubs are preparing to elect the new president, today’s appointment for the (perhaps) decisive elective assembly. There are currently three candidates running: Mauro Balatacurrent number one who aims to defend his seat, Paolo Bedina name supported by the Minister for Sport Andrea Abodi, of which he was general director at the time when he led the Serie B and Vittorio Veltronimanager with experience in Mondadori and Vodafone. But the real issue to be resolved is not the name of who will lead the League, rather the fate of a championship that risks sinking under the weight of short-sighted choices.
The numbers of LaB Channel
An emblematic case is “LaB Channel”, the new Lega Serie B television channel, distributed by Amazon Prime Video. Presented as an innovation to enhance the championship, it is proving to be a resounding flop. After the first weekend of broadcasts, there were just 7 thousand subscribers. It would cost 9.99 euros, but an initial promotion lowered the price to 4.99 euros per month for the first three months: a figure that will produce revenues from subscriptions of just 35 thousand euros per month and no more than 600 thousand euros per season. Crumbs, if you consider that the clubs invested around 70 thousand euros each to start the project: 1.4 million in total. And Prime gets 30% of the revenues. To make the picture worse, the production costs: shared between the companies and Amazon, make clear a bitter reality: for now LaB Channel represents a net loss. This failure is concrete proof of how difficult it is to find sustainable solutions for the accounts of a championship which is certainly not Serie A, but which should aspire to greater economic independence.
A championship to be relaunched
Serie B has suffered the difficulty of being able to create economic value in recent years: it is not an exclusive problem of the Italian second series, on the contrary. But two of the candidates – Balata and Bedin – were protagonists of part of this twist: the first has been president since 2018, the second – managing director Abodi – signed highly discussed collaboration agreements and gave rise to the forced withdrawal from the parachute of those relegated from Serie A, giving up a significant mutuality quota. Veltroni, on the other hand, can be accused of not having experience of the world of football, at least not from the inside. But it remains to be understood whether this is a disadvantage or an advantage.
The election of the new president will however be crucial: the mission is to be able to transform a championship in chronic crisis into a development platform for Italian football. The future of Serie B has never been so uncertain. And never so urgent.
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