Why Serie A Is Losing the Battle for Fans to the Premier League

Italian football still has the history, the tactics and the passion. What it lacks is the money, the stadiums and the global pull to compete with the Premier League for the attention of fans around the world.

Thirty years ago, there was no argument. Serie A was the best league in the world, the place where Maradona, Van Basten, Baggio and Batistuta played their peak years, and Football Italia on Channel 4 was appointment viewing for a generation of British fans.

Today, the roles are reversed. The Premier League is the default league for football fans from Lagos to Jakarta, while Serie A has become a league that fans dip into rather than follow. The gap is not about the quality of the football on a good weekend. It is structural, and the numbers show just how wide it has become.

1. The money gap feeds itself

Every argument about Serie A’s decline eventually comes back to money, because money decides everything else: which players a league can keep, which it can sign, and how good the product looks on screen.

According to Deloitte’s latest figures, Premier League clubs generated £6.8bn in revenue in a season, up 8%. Serie A brought in €3bn, up 4%. The Premier League is not just ahead; it is pulling further away every year.

Broadcast rights explain much of the difference. The Premier League’s current domestic deal with Sky Sports and TNT Sports is worth £6.7bn over four seasons, around £1.675bn a year. Serie A’s domestic deal with DAZN and Sky Italia is worth €4.5bn over five seasons, around €900m a year.

That is before the Premier League’s overseas rights are counted, which is where the gap becomes a chasm. Higher revenue means bigger wages, better signings, more stars and more global interest, which in turn lifts the value of the next TV deal. Serie A is stuck on the wrong side of that cycle.

2. Stadiums from another era

Watch a Premier League match and you see a full, modern ground with the crowd close to the pitch. Watch many Serie A matches and you see running tracks, empty sections and concrete that has barely changed since Italia 90.

According to PwC, Italy built or modernised six stadiums between 2007 and 2024. England managed 13 and Germany 19. Juventus remain one of the few Italian clubs to own their ground, and when Italy named 10 possible venues for Euro 2032, a UEFA official said only the Allianz Stadium in Turin was ready.

The San Siro, built in 1926, sums up the problem. Milan and Inter have spent years trying to replace it, with plans tied up in politics and local opposition. Italy faced an October 2026 deadline to confirm five Euro 2032 stadiums to UEFA, with the threat that matches could be moved to Türkiye if progress fell short.

Old stadiums cost Serie A twice. Clubs earn far less on matchday: Deloitte puts Serie A’s matchday revenue at €440m in 2023-24, less than half the Premier League’s. And the product looks worse on television, which matters when you are competing for overseas viewers.

3. Full grounds versus half-empty ones

Italian football does not lack passionate supporters. Attendances at Serie A games have recovered strongly in recent seasons, and the big clubs draw huge crowds. The problem is consistency.

Source: Inside World Football, Europe’s big five leagues 2025-26.

A Premier League ground is, on average, 97% full. Serie A’s is around 81% full, the lowest occupancy of Europe’s big five leagues. One in five seats is empty, and viewers at home notice.

4. Piracy is draining the league

Italy’s piracy problem would be a crisis in any other industry. Serie A chief executive Luigi De Siervo has said illegal streaming cost the league around $345m in lost revenue in a single year. The league has pushed for tougher laws, including sanctions for viewers of illegal streams, but every euro lost to piracy is a euro not spent on players or stadiums.

There is also a vicious circle here. High subscription prices push fans towards illegal streams of Serie A games, which reduce the value of the next rights deal, which in turn keeps prices high.

5. The stars have moved on

Fans follow players as much as clubs, and the world’s best players now gather in England, Spain and with Paris Saint-Germain. The 2026 Ballon d’Or shortlist made the point bluntly: of the 30 men nominated, only one, Inter’s Lautaro Martinez, played his club football in Serie A. He was also the league’s top scorer last season, with 17 goals.

Italian clubs have become very good at finding and developing talent, then selling it. That keeps them solvent, but it means the league’s brightest players often become household names only after they leave for the Premier League or elsewhere.

6. The Premier League sells itself better

The Premier League has spent three decades building a global brand. Kick-off times suit Asian audiences, the league tours the world in pre-season, and its broadcast production sets the standard for others to follow.

Serie A has tried to catch up, with overseas matches discussed and more investment in its international output. But it is competing against a league that is not just richer but better organised commercially, with 20 clubs selling the same product to the same global audience.

How to watch Serie A in the UK, and why it still struggles

For British fans, access is not the problem. In 2026-27, DAZN shows all 380 Serie A games live in the UK, TNT Sports shows up to two matches a week, and BBC Alba shows 38 games free on BBC iPlayer. Anyone wondering where to watch Serie A in the UK has more options than at any time since the Football Italia era.

Yet availability has not translated into the same kind of following the Premier League enjoys. Part of the reason is planning. The 2026-27 Serie A fixtures were published on 5 June, but exact dates and kick-off times are only confirmed in blocks of around seven matchdays. Matchdays 13 to 19, running from 29 November to 10 January, were confirmed on 25 September, about two months ahead. That makes it harder for overseas fans to plan around Serie A than around a league that publishes its TV picks well in advance.

Coverage correct at the time of writing. Check with broadcasters for current prices and schedules.

What Serie A still does better

The verdict: can Serie A close the gap?

Serie A will not overtake the Premier League in fan interest any time soon. The financial lead is too large and grows every year. But it does not need to beat the Premier League to thrive. It needs to stop the gap growing.

That means three things above all: building or modernising stadiums so that full grounds become the norm, winning the fight against piracy so that rights deals reflect the true audience, and keeping its best players long enough for fans to fall in love with them.

Euro 2032 should be the catalyst. If Italy uses it to rebuild its stadiums, Serie A could have the infrastructure to sell itself properly to a global audience for the first time in a generation. If not, the Premier League will keep pulling away, and the gap between the Premier League table and the Serie A table will be measured in fans as much as money.