AC Milan are expected to be cheered on by another big crowd during Sunday’s game against Atalanta at San Siro.
Despite it being Easter Sunday, an occasion still very much celebrated in Italy, there will be a big attendance for the visit of La Dea. As reported by La Gazzetta dello Sport (via MilanNews), 73,000 fans are expected at San Siro in the 33rd round.
Season ticket holders aside, over 30,000 tickets have already been sold for the game against Atalanta, of which 18,000 are to foreign fans. In the away section, there should be between 1,800 and 2,000 Nerazzurri supporters.
The same paper recently spoke of the ‘Meazza paradox’ with Inter sitting top of Serie A but struggling to fill the stadium, compared to Milan who are ninth in the table but top for attendances and the only club to average over 70,000 fans per game in Italy.
This is despite having a fanbase that are mostly angry because of a season that has largely fallen short of expectations on the field, as well as a lot of scepticism about the general project.
The chances of getting a Champions League place realistically vanished weeks ago, and the Rossoneri are on course for their worst league finish since the 2014-15 campaign under Pippi Inzaghi.
Why change anything when every game is a sell out?
Elliot / Redbird
Our thoughts exactly 💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰
#GET ELLIOT / REDBIRD OUT.
Cardinale’s ACM business model is based on the premise that football is entertainment – not war by other means. His calculation is that as long as fans are entertained by watching ACM’s matches, they don’t really care if the team fails to win top trophies such as the Scudetto and the CL. In other words, he believes high demand for tickets or TV subscriptions to see ACM’s matches is inelastic, largely unaffected by where the club sits in the football standings.
Under this business model, entertainment means such frivolous distractions as drama on and off the pitch; sales of ever-more lurid team shirts and other kitsch merchandise; musical performances, sound and light shows, and spectacular fireworks; air force jets flying overhead; acrobats parachuting into the stadium; executives and celebrities strutting their stuff in corporate boxes; and so forth. It’s football as a gaudy, highly-commercialized, multi-dimensional spectacle – the Disneyfication of the sport.
For ACM’s late, great owner Berlusconi, by contrast, football was, first and foremost, a tribal and cultural conflict; a clash of football civilizations; a key prong of a personal quest to achieve political ascendancy. He entertained fans not by mesmerizing them with gimmicks and PR stunts, but by systematically and relentlessly pursuing victory on the pitch. World domination was his goal. And whilst he spent his money wisely and profited financially from ACM, his quest for sporting supremacy never – at least not during the periods during his reign when the club was in its pomp – played second fiddle to material considerations. For him, ownership of ACM was essentially an act of noblesse oblige – a wealthy man’s labor of love.
Cardinale will milk ACM’s fans for all it’s worth, as long as he can, without delivering football triumph, if he thinks that, deep down, what they really want isn’t so much sporting greatness and success as fun and entertainment. He’ll only spend more than the absolute minimum required on the football side of his operation if many thousands of fans become disillusioned and angry in the absence of victory and stop attending games.
Disneyfication of ACM shouldn’t be confused with Americanization. There are several clubs in Europe owned by Americans, such as Liverpool, Arsenal, and our city rivals Inter, that operate according to different principles – who value sporting success as much as financial profit. ACM’s problem, therefore, isn’t America in general, but a particular species of American who has an avaricious and meretricious approach to running our club.
Cardinale is in the wrong place. The Elvis of Wall St, he should apply his predatory money-making skills to the US entertainment industry – not to a storied European cultural institution such as ACM whose raison d’etre throughout its long and proud history has been to win football trophies at the highest level. The right home for his projects is California, Florida, and Las Vegas – not Milan. True believers want ACM to win – not merely perform.
If Cardinale’s vision for ACM is that it becomes an exhibition team – football’s version of the Harlem Globetrotters – he should up sticks, move ACM to Las Vegas, and rename it and base it there as the Casino City Clowns. We don’t want him in Milan.
Redbird out!