Gerry Cardinale was present at the Leaders Week event in London earlier today to speak about what the future holds for owners of football clubs. Of course, he was asked about the recent purchase of AC Milan.
Cardinale and his company, RedBid Capital, officially took over Milan earlier this month after completing the purchase from Elliott Management. He has since made it clear that investments will be made to make money, albeit always with a well-thought plan.
Speaking at the Leaders Week in London, the event hosted by Leaders in Sport, Cardinale was asked about why he decided to buy Milan. He stated that the club is a sleeping giant and also touched on the TV rights of Serie A.
“AC Milan, in my view, is one of the most exciting things that we’ve done. I think AC Milan is a sleeping giant. I think we bought it well, I think that if you look at its position globally as a brand in European football, it’s one of the big ones. And it’s under-monetised. If you look at the differential in England and Spain and LaLiga with Serie A, there’s a tremendous opportunity here to further work our way into the money on AC Milan and Serie A in general.
“So our interest in AC Milan was really about AC Milan as a brand and what we could do with it. And it was also about Serie A and what we think the possibilities are for that as a league.”
“I just don’t think there should be a three-to-one differential between media revenues across the EPL [English Premier League], LaLiga, and Serie A,” he said.
“If you look at the quality of football played in Serie A, if you look at the aggregate market value of players in Serie A, it’s on a level with La Liga. And yet there’s a two-to-one differential in media revenue, a three-to-one differential versus the EPL. That can be improved, that should be improved.
“I don’t look at a team without looking at the ecosystem that it’s in. And I see a tremendous embedded value and value trajectory both for AC Milan and Serie A. And the way we’re thinking about it is that our activities in building AC Milan back to where it was should have a derivative effect in helping raise everything for Serie A,” he concluded as cited by SportsProMedia.
Given that he’s in London now, Cardinale might attend the game between Chelsea and Milan at Stamford Bridge next week. It will be a tough game for the Rossoneri but as seen in the two UCL games played thus far, they have grown.
