Re: Serie A Thread - Fixtures Released!
Jumberto said:
I remember ages ago we had a disucssion in PLF's thread about it. It's a vicious circle really, we get poor coverage, so people make those stupid stereotypes of other leagues because they've never really watched them and then following that they dont want to watch them, so the TV companies are reluctant to buy the coverage and the people who would love to watch them don't get to.
that's an interesting theory mate, and it makes sense... but imo the situation is different.
the unchecked growth of the mass production system messed up the whole "demand-supply" logic.
today the supply doesn't follow the demand anymore. the marketing strategies (who almost became a science today) brought the companies to "create a demand".
until 30 years ago the "market" used to provide anything it was necessary to satisfy the customers needs.
today, the companies fill the market of products and goods even if there's no demand for those products yet. Later, their marketing strategies take care of creating the demand for those products.
just look at the global market, look at our homes... they're all filled of things we don't really need... but we bought those goods... coz we were persuaded we actually needed them.
And TV programs are products too, of course, they're immaterial goods, and the same logic is applied to them (just think about the big brother; it's stupid, boring, morbid. No clever man or woman would ever watch it.... but still it became a world-wide succesful program).
well, this distorted, disgusting marketing logic, may still bring something good when applied to some products. and football leagues tv coverage is one of theese products.
let me do an example. up till 10 years ago, if u would have asked to an italian "what do u think about english football" he probably would have replied "
oh gosh, those barbarians, that's not football, that's just running with a ball between your foot".
"what about spanish football then?"
"
oh please, they don't know how to defend. their cbs act like they were central midfielders. every match ends with ridiculous high scores thanks to their non-existing defensive lines, and they are even proud of it, coz they think that means they're good at football"
"and what about french football?"
"
french football? do they play football in France too?"
we didn't know anything about european football, and we didn't care. there wasn't a demand of premiership, ligue un, or bundesliga.
but still, the italian tv companies realised that if they have showed us what english, french, german or spanish football is really about, we would have got rid of our prejudices and stereotypes, we would have enjoyed following those leagues (and they would have make more money in long term).
as a result, if u ask an italian today what does he thinks about german, english, spanish or french footie, he will start talking about Puel's great football, about Pellegrino's villareal, about the great growth of everton.....
it's up to the networks to do the first step. they have to know the european leagues and their potential, thay have to educate us about foreign countries football culture.
because there's no football addict who wouldn't fall in love with serie a's footie, liga's footie, bundesliga's footie. we just need someone to widen our horizon.
after the great achievements of russian footie in the past few years (cska and zenith's results in uefa cup and the russian national team at the last euro cuo) this summer sky italia realized there's some potential in this league and decided to buy russian league tv rights.
well italian people is loving it and the audience is growing every week.
sky italia is increasing the quality of their "package" and the italian customers are enjoying some russian football.
so, imo the real responsibles are not the customers, not the english ignorant "football lovers". the networks are the ones to blame, coz it's up to them to do the first step. the real problem is that the whole british media industry doesn't know anything about football. they're as ignorant, chauvinist, blind as those stupid football fans we were talking about before. and coz of their crass ignorance they can't even see the great financial profit margin hidden in serie a tv coverage.
if that (notional) evo web member who said serie a is boring coz the teams just try to score 1 goal and then defend for the whole match, would have been able to follow serie a, he would know that serie a and premiership have the same average goal per match (2.64 for premiership; 2.55 for serie a).
if he would have been able to watch empoli, atalanta, parma, cagliari, genoa, napoli or samp, the he would realize what makes serie a so special.
but if nobody gives him a chance to watch serie a, he won't ever realize it. he will keep saying that serie a is rubbish, that the teams don't play fancy attacking football, he will keep talking about "anti-football", he will keep saying that everton is a better team than fiorentina, or that aston villa is better than samp, that west ham is better than genoa, that sunderland is better than torino.
he will remain a silly ignorant.
sorry for the long post :-pp
Zeem said:
As for Inter, I wasnot impressed at all.
inter begun the summer athletic preparation just 1 week ago, and they have a lot of injured players... besides, being such a "tall team", it's pretty normal for them to have very heavy legs at this moment.
they won't reach their athletic peak until october.
unfortunately hes gone back to Milan 
but I think we can still do well!
... and i always considered myself as a pretty fit man.
)
were all interested in the rights but all three appear to have been put off by the amount required. I guess if an English footballer moved to a Serie A team, there would be no problem. Over to you, Frank Lampard.
