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Extra Free Episode - The Interview: Serie A CEO & Managing Director USA Andy Mitchell (Ep. 392)
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The Italian Football Podcast is delighted to sit down for an interview with the CEO and Managing Director of Serie A USA, Andy Mitchell, on a wide variety of topics from marketing, brand growth, and visions on how to grow the league in North America.
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Transcript
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome
Introduction to Andy Mitchell
00:00:03
Speaker
to the Italian Football Podcast. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another interview episode of the Italian Football Podcast. My name is Nima Tabale-Rutsari, and I'm delighted today to be joined by the CEO and Managing Director of Seria USA, Andy Mitchell. First of all, welcome to the show, Andy. How are you doing?
00:00:23
Speaker
Chad Nemeth, I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. It's really great to be here, and I really enjoy your show. So it's exciting for me to be here on my own. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that.
Career Journey in Media
00:00:34
Speaker
Well, let's start with a little bit of an introduction for our listeners, a little bit about yourself and who you are and how it came to be, your background, and of course, how it came to be that the Italian Serie A chose you to be the CEO and managing director of Serie A USA.
00:00:48
Speaker
Sure, so my background is in media. I worked in media my whole career. I worked at CNN for a decade and a half, and then I worked at Facebook from the early days of media through 2000. When did I leave there?
00:01:03
Speaker
2020. It has been, or 2022, so it's been a great ride in media. Big football fan, big part of my job at Facebook was traveling to Europe and South America and just started to understand the culture of football and how deeply it runs, you know, through European and South American cultures. And it was really spent by the game.
00:01:25
Speaker
So, look for ways that I can transition my career into football in some way. Met a lot of people, learned a lot about structures of leagues and teams, and try to think about where I could fit in. I had a colleague, Peter Hutton, who a lot of people in the industry know, who was a former CEO of Eurosport, who was a colleague of mine at Facebook. And so, when Legacyrie I was looking for someone to help
00:01:55
Speaker
build their U.S. business. Peter referred me, which I deeply appreciate. And here I am.
Personal Football Journey
00:02:00
Speaker
I've been here for about nine months. Oh, OK. So I wanted to ask you a little bit about your interest in in football and and and like like how I mean, aside from, you know, getting into it at Facebook and stuff, do you have some sort of a personal relationship with with the game as soccer, as you guys call it in the U.S.?
00:02:19
Speaker
I played as a kid, like a lot of American kids, and a lot of American kids lost interest. It just isn't a mainstream sport here. But I have a son, he's now 14, but when he was around five, was thinking about things that we could do together. So we started going to some New York Red Bull games.
00:02:42
Speaker
But then NYCFC, which is part of the city football group, was started here in New York City. And I thought to myself, whoever gets to be the fan of a team from literally day one. And so my son and I, which I know is really looked down upon, we traded our allegiance from the New York Red Bulls, who really play in New Jersey or more New Jersey's team, to New York City Football Club, where city dwellers living in Brooklyn.
00:03:10
Speaker
signed on for year one and it's it's been great for us to share that interest we go to we're members we go to all the matches with him and with friends and then at the same time starting to understand globally the like like I was mentioning the culture of the sport and
00:03:32
Speaker
By the end of the early days of my interest, I had a team in almost every league around the world and had a reason, a connection to each of those clubs. And again, just really fell down the rabbit hole. I spent more time than I'd like to admit, reading articles, reading books, listening to podcasts, et cetera. Love the sport. I really think it's incredible and really different from any of the American sports. And I really appreciate deeply what soccer has come to mean to me.
Building Serie A USA
00:04:01
Speaker
So how many people do you have in your team that you've built? Cause you guys opened up an office in New York. I think it was about a year ago, was it? It'll be two years in May. Yeah, buddy. You asked if you asked me last week, I would have said that we had two people. Um, I can say as of today, we have four people. Actually our fourth person started today. So we have, um, an editorial function. We have a marketing function and we have a commercial partnerships function.
00:04:25
Speaker
So those are really the three disciplines that we're focused on here. And we're really just getting started. I feel like we have a lot of good momentum over the last nine to 12 months that I've been here, really excited about some new initiatives and looking ahead. I feel like there's a ton of opportunity for us to grow Saria here in the US.
00:04:45
Speaker
It absolutely is. And just to be clear on what your remit and responsibilities, I mean, you're the CEO and managing director. That would suggest to me that you're in charge of growing all of those three disciplines and
00:04:57
Speaker
basically all that you mentioned.
Key Focus Areas of Serie A USA
00:04:59
Speaker
It would be correct, yeah. So the way I look at it, I look at our work across four primary dimensions. One is brand development. I feel like here in the US, given the success of Serie A in the European competitions, UEFA says what are the number two or sometimes the number three league, we are well, our brand doesn't get the attention it deserves here. So one is just how can we help people understand
00:05:26
Speaker
the level of football that's played in Italy and the other thing when we when I think about brand that's really really important is Italy gives us an incredible differentiator for you know
00:05:38
Speaker
compared to the other European leagues. So Americans of Italy, we recently did some research. There are 51 million Americans that have an affinity for Italy here in the US. So really what I want to think about is ways that we connect culture to culture. So that's number one. Number two is audience
Cultural Expansion Strategy
00:05:55
Speaker
development. So that is obviously getting more people to consume content from us. So that could be watching our matches on CBS Paramount Plus.
00:06:06
Speaker
that could be connected to our social channels. We recently launched an email newsletter that I'm really proud of called Calcha Weekly. So just generally, how do we get more people consuming content from legacy area here in the US and across North America? Three is commercial development. So we have the opportunity to bring on sponsors here and are working very hard on sponsoring some of our content franchises and other ways that we can bring commercial sponsors to bear here in the US.
00:06:34
Speaker
And then lastly is community. And so we've done partnered with Street Soccer USA. We helped them build a pitch in the South Bronx of New York. We also built a Seriat Media Center there to teach kids about media. We did an event in Miami with Christian Pulisic and his team in Puma at the Pulisic stomping ground with some kids.
00:06:58
Speaker
from the little Havana section of Cuba. Sorry, the little Havana section of Miami. Sorry about that. And so really trying to be a good member of the community and get involved in the community here is also a priority of ours.
00:07:12
Speaker
Well, that kind of answers my next question about the objective set to you by the Serie A. So I'm going to ask you, would it be correct to assume then the primary audience that you have in the United States is Americans with Italian heritage, the 51 million you mentioned. Those are primarily your primary target. And then secondarily, everyone else, would that be correct?
00:07:35
Speaker
Well, so sorry, just to clarify, the 51 million number was 50. That's Americans who have an affinity. So not necessarily Italian. So honestly, that's something I struggle with is how much we should be. It's almost like the political question, you know, of like, do you focus on the base or do you feel like you've got the base? And so therefore you spend your energies on expanding beyond your base, I think in a lot of ways.
00:08:00
Speaker
not to take them for granted, but the Italians and the Italian Americans, Saria is in their blood. It's been passed down for generations, so they are fans that I feel like are foundational for us. And so what I want to do is continue to double down on the bass, but more importantly, is how do we grow Saria beyond the bass and bring in fans? And that's why I think that connection to Italy
00:08:26
Speaker
whether it be Italian food or fashion or culture or industry, travel. Again, Americans love Italy, so how do we connect Calco to those different parts of Italian culture so that we can showcase the beautiful game as it's played in Italy to a much broader set of Americans and people in North America to really grow the league?
00:08:50
Speaker
Just to be clear, when you say North America, you're just specifically talking about the U.S. and not Canada, right? Canada is very important for us. It was great to have Tejem V. Cannon join the league a couple of weeks ago. It's great to see him playing for Inter, but that's Canada.
00:09:07
Speaker
and also Mexico. But the US is obviously the biggest market and the biggest opportunity for us, so I do spend the majority of my time thinking about the US, but Canada and Mexico are also very important for us, and we're trying to do different things to grow there as well. So they are part of your remit and responsibilities then? Correct. Okay, cool. Right. So I just wanted to, before we get into it,
00:09:33
Speaker
What do you think you would be, I mean, how do you think you'll be able to impact the image and brand of Italian football in North America? So I think a lot of it is about awareness.
00:09:44
Speaker
I feel like, again, I don't want to keep saying the same thing over and over, but I think it's really important and really speaks to the strategy. Really growing Calco in the US, I think, riding the coattails of Italian culture broadly is the way to go. So you'll start to see us. We've already started, and this is really being driven out of Italy, but there's a new content series that we are doing
00:10:09
Speaker
in collaboration with the italian trade agency called champions made of italy so there are twenty. There will be twenty different profiles of all the clubs in the league with your different players talking about their experience in the cities how the cities are different i think the first four. Are out the last one release was learn it on a with a choa.
00:10:31
Speaker
And so those are on YouTube and you can also find them in the US here on Paramount Plus. And those will roll out over the course of the season. So that's a great way for us to showcase to Americans what these 20 clubs are, where they are, what they're about, and how they're different.
00:10:51
Speaker
OK, well, I mean, let's talk a little bit about how the city is perceived outside of Italy. Many people, I mean, you know, if we leave aside the results as such, but a lot of the things that, you know, follow the city is that it's it's kind of it's a league in ruins in the sense that the stadiums are very, very old. It's run by very old mentality and kind of almost dinosaurs. And it's kind of been marketed pretty bad as well.
00:11:16
Speaker
I mean, first of all, do you agree with that? And secondly, what do you think you guys can do to change that perception primarily in North America? So I
Defending Serie A's US Strategy
00:11:26
Speaker
don't agree with that at all. I see day in and day out how hard and smart and strategic the people are that are doing the marketing for the league. And I've been really impressed with the people in Milan that we work with and the passion
00:11:42
Speaker
Of the league so i'm not sure where that perceptions from i haven't been here long enough to know but i also know that you know, and i've heard it characterizes way that after the success of the nineties that the league kind of went to sleep for a while but there's completely new leadership in milan running the league day to day and i wouldn't be here.
00:12:02
Speaker
I thought all the things that you know all the all the perceptions that you said were true, you know I come from You know having worked for Facebook and CNN back in the day, you know working for Ted Turner, you know pretty I think revolutionary Products and I wouldn't be here and I wouldn't be betting my career I didn't think that there was a lot of opportunity here in the US and if I didn't think it was a well-run organization and
00:12:28
Speaker
That's fair, but a lot of the perception has been that, for example, that there's been kind of a lack of strategy and maybe a lack of a kind of competent strategy to grow Italian football and stop it further falling behind from the likes of Premier League, who are, let's be honest, the gold standard in world football. I mean, financially, sportingly, bureaucratically, we keep falling behind. I mean, I think, for example, the TV deals that have plummeted in the last
00:12:57
Speaker
years in the right cycles around the world and it happened also recently with the domestic TV rights deal too. So surely that must be a problem, no?
00:13:06
Speaker
Well, I mean, the Premier League is doing incredible work. So hats off to them. And it's been great to see their success. I feel like their success really creates the rising tide lifts all boats. And I think it creates an opportunity for us as another European football league to raise the profile here. And I think just more people interested in football
00:13:28
Speaker
again, creates more opportunity for all the other leagues. And then couple that with the fact of Americans' affinity for Italy and Italian culture. And I think that could really give us a leg up on the other leagues. But I think we've all got a lot of headroom to grow here in the US, and there's a high ceiling. We see the game growing consistently year over year. And then I think if history is a guide,
00:13:55
Speaker
or an order of magnitude, more people are going to be interested in football as we get closer to the World Cup. And what my job is, is to make sure that like Saria is in the consideration set of people and they know who we are. They know what's different and interesting and unique about Saria and that's the way we grow the fan base here.
00:14:15
Speaker
Fair enough. But I mean, a lot of the things I mean, let's I mean, let's just say, would you accept that until now, perhaps before you started, maybe the city has been, well, it's been kind of unable to connect successfully with a modern outside world in terms of marketing and growing the brand. I mean, if we were to compare with the Premier League.
00:14:33
Speaker
not saying that we should be jealous of them or anything like that. I'm just saying, comparing to how they have succeeded and what they've done to succeed, would you accept that maybe the Serie A has not been able to do that in its own way, so to speak? Well, I think it's fair to say that certainly the Premier League is setting the pace. But again, I feel very confidently saying that we've got a great strategy and looking back,
00:15:03
Speaker
Is there things that the league could have done differently? Of course, but you could say that about everything. You know, hindsight is 2020. What I want to do is really look forward and see what we can do to raise the profile, get more fans, you know, really start to build a business here in North America.
00:15:18
Speaker
Well, let's talk about moving forward and looking forward because obviously, you know, you've been there for nine months. And so it's difficult to kind of ask you about things that happened prior to your joining the organization. I would like to ask you looking forward, what plans do you have now to grow? Because the city are marketing many times, especially on social media. I mean, up until now, recently,
00:15:41
Speaker
Well, it was barely written in intelligible English many of the times. It was that the grammar just wasn't there. And a lot of weird stats like average apex height graphics that keeps being used and people are confused. So what can we expect moving forward now from from Syria in order to do all the things that you know that the high levels that the high goals that you've set for yourselves?
00:16:06
Speaker
Yeah. So I
Social Media Focus
00:16:07
Speaker
think social is obviously a focus for us. We relaunched the North American channel about three months ago. We rebranded it so it's clear that it's for North American fans. So we changed it. It was that Saria. I think to your point, it wasn't clear who that was for and kind of how it was different. That's on Instagram, right? That's on Instagram, correct.
00:16:30
Speaker
And we rebranded it to LegacyRI underscore North America. So it's clear who we're programming for, and it's complimentary to how they're programming the Instagram and other social channels in Milan. And we've recently launched a series that's performing very, very well for us that I'm really happy about that we call Weekend Calcho.
00:16:51
Speaker
It is not necessarily like a wrap up of the weekend. More importantly, what we're trying to do is showcase the narratives and the people that are interesting coming out of each weekend's matches. So that's been performing very well for us. It's continuing to grow at a nice pace.
00:17:09
Speaker
We partner with an organization called Wave Sports Entertainment, who owns the FTBL handle. That's very popular. So they're helping us with distribution. So we also do some player profiles as part of that. And then we've been doing some news coverage as well. So the day that Tejan Buchanan signed, we did a quick turn news piece that performed
00:17:34
Speaker
extremely well. It's nice to watch that graph and see that big spike. And so I think programming our Instagram is one of our strategic priorities, and I think we've already made some great headway there. I mentioned it earlier, but I think it's really important.
00:17:50
Speaker
We launched an email newsletter called Calcho Weekly. There's a podcaster that writes for the, sorry, that is on the Total Soccer Show, which is a very popular podcast here in the US, general football coverage. He was living in Rome.
00:18:07
Speaker
and was understood Italian culture. I was a regular listener to that show. And one of the ideas I had coming in the door and one of my hypotheses was that if you're a Serie A fan in the US or you're even Serie A curious, there's not necessarily a great place to find
00:18:25
Speaker
coverage of the league day in and day out. And so we are aggregating interesting content from around the league, giving people some background, some narratives to follow. So for example, for the Super Copa, we help people understand the history of the cup, the background, why it is where it is, et cetera. And so Catra Weekly has also been a great success for us. We're seeing continued growth and really happy about that.
00:18:55
Speaker
Definitely. Oh, sorry. Is that just mainly on Instagram or is it on YouTube? That's our email newsletter. OK, sorry. That comes every Thursday. We send it about 1 p.m. Eastern time. And if people want to sign up to that, where do they go?
00:19:09
Speaker
It's bitly.com or no, sorry, bitly slash Calcho weekly. And I can send you that link if you want. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. We definitely will want to include it because I'm sure people would be interested. Just so I understand, because it seems to me a lot of that, it seems to be a lot of focus on Instagram that you guys do. So is it correct to assume then that the Twitter handle and the Facebook handle that the Seria has, it's run by people in Milan.
00:19:37
Speaker
Correct, yes. OK. Are there any plans in you taking over and creating one for yourselves on those platforms, or are you just focusing on Instagram for the time being? Kind of one thing at a time. I feel like Instagram right now has the most scale. And I think it creates the most opportunity for us. And so I want to, we're a small team, and I really want to focus on the places where I think can move the needle for us and deliver impact. And I think Instagram is that place today. That being said,
00:20:06
Speaker
as I mentioned we have somebody new here heading up content and editorial and so I'll be who is that I mean would you mind of naming who those are and introducing them to us a little bit those different people in charge of that sure so his name is Connor Lovenstein he is not known in the world of football but
00:20:22
Speaker
I really appreciated his background. He has got a top 20 pod here, has a top 20 podcast in the golf category. He's done a lot of sponsored and branded content as well as social strategies for brands. So his background, I think, can really help us not only with consumers, but also can help us with some of our commercial aspirations. The person who joined us on the commercial side, his name is Alessandro Girardi.
00:20:50
Speaker
He joins us from NBC where he worked on the Premier League business and helped NBC with their sales efforts around the Premier League as well as their other sports. He's going to help us a lot in the commercial area. He's also grew up in Bologna, came to the States for college. He understands well Italian culture, but also at the same time can bring, given his education in the US, a US point of view to the work.
00:21:20
Speaker
And then you said you were four people including yourself or was that?
00:21:24
Speaker
Including myself, we also have a marketing manager. Her name is Jenna Urgo. She, again, Italian-American, grew up here in New York. So it's really nice for us to have the perspective in the office. And it's a form of diversity that we've got an American-American, two Americans, an Italian-American, and an Italian. And it really helps us kind of think about the different perspectives as we strategize on new initiatives.
Charlie Stellitano's Role
00:21:52
Speaker
I read somewhere, I think about a year ago, that the person in charge who founded and set up and ran the ICC, International Champions Cup, Charlie Stellitano, was part of your team. Is that no longer true then? No, Charlie's here. Charlie's with us. Charlie's a great asset for us. He's not here day-to-day. He serves as chairman of our office here, and he and I work really closely together, but he's a great asset. If there's anybody we ever want to talk to,
00:22:18
Speaker
Charlie does everybody, he opens those doors. Okay, cool. So it's basically safe to assume then that for the time being at least, the focus is on growing the newsletter and the social media channel that you're focusing on is Instagram. Would that be the safest option? That is correct, that is fair. Cool, fair enough.
00:22:39
Speaker
Do you
Future Events in the US
00:22:40
Speaker
have any other plans that you could maybe break for us? Because we saw the other day, I think it was Gravina who said that in the future, entire rounds of the Serie A could be played abroad. He didn't mention a country, but it's not exactly difficult to understand if you look at where they've opened up offices that that country could be the United States. Is that something that we can expect in the near future?
00:23:04
Speaker
Not that I know of. I'm hopeful and optimistic that there will be opportunities for us to showcase Calco in different ways here in the U.S. We already have the international or the champion soccer tour. Last year we had Milan and Uwe here on the west coast. This year
00:23:25
Speaker
watch for an announcement on where those matches will be and who will be participating. But I'm very excited about the potential for us to use Summer Tour to bring in new fans and to reach new audiences. It will be very high profile this summer. And we're excited about it. I was a little nervous because obviously there's a lot of fixture congestion across all the different international tournaments happening this summer. But they are going to be able to squeeze that in. So I'm really happy that
00:23:55
Speaker
We're going to have the opportunity to bring the Italian clubs here again this summer. And it should be an exciting time given who all the participants are. One thing that on this podcast that we feel a little bit passionately about and also a little bit critical about is the fact that the Serie A seemingly only has to have a strategy for growing the league in around North America.
00:24:17
Speaker
I understand that, of course, this isn't criticism of you. You've been hired to head up the North American office. But it seems that the city is only focusing on North America and not really anywhere else.
00:24:27
Speaker
I mean, do you know of any other plans they have to maybe grow in Middle East, North Africa, China, other places, you know, maybe a Spanish speaking because of the Spanish is a world language just like English. Do you know of anything of any plans to do that? Because it suggests to me that four or five hundred million people in Canada, America and Mexico
00:24:47
Speaker
the planet is seven billion. Did you see what I'm saying? Like maybe grow? Yeah. Well, we have an office in Abu Dhabi. So we were covered in the Middle East and Africa and they focus there. And it's a really talented group of colleagues that I have over there. I've been very impressed with them. And one step at a time. So we are working to establish
00:25:06
Speaker
these offices there are discussions about reaching out into new markets but I think it's smart to not get overextended like let's make sure that we can drive success and impact in the markets that we're already invested in and then you know take that playbook and expand from there.
00:25:22
Speaker
One thing that I wish for the Serie A to do, and I'm kind of interested to hear your view on it, given your background, is for example, instead of selling TV rights to regions, to basically create a global app and produce the product in-house, in Spanish, English, Italian,
00:25:43
Speaker
and whatever language that you want to do and then put the app like netflix essentially and go directly to to the to the to the customer by which i think is kind of what's gonna happen anyway in the and i wish you the city i would do it before the premier league does it because once they do it i think they're going to dominate forever. I'm financially that is what are your thoughts on that would you agree with that.
Challenges of Streaming Service
00:26:04
Speaker
I mean, it's an interesting idea and certainly it's one way to go. I can tell you that having launched subscription businesses, it's very, very, very difficult from every perspective. Building a great consumer service takes a lot of very talented engineers.
00:26:23
Speaker
That's very hard to come by. Customer acquisition can be very expensive. It would be a non-trivial effort. I'm not saying it's not smart and not a very sound strategy, but having done that before, no one should underestimate.
00:26:41
Speaker
how hard that is and we've seen that today with the US streaming services and how they're struggling and they're huge media companies. It would be a massive undertaking that would take a lot of years to build and get right. That's fair. Let's talk a little bit about the football on the pitch. I want to know a little bit about your
00:27:05
Speaker
your relationship to Italian football. Do you have a favorite club or do you have any favorite players? As a league official, I like all of the clubs.
00:27:20
Speaker
But I will say it's fun. You know, I feel like in a lot of ways, I was the luckiest guy in the world when I joined the league. We had one American player who was not playing at Milan and Serginio desk. And so then, you know, over the course of the summer, we brought in arguably for the best American players.
00:27:39
Speaker
And then now having Taejeon Buchanan, there's even rumors about another Canadian potentially coming to the league. So, you know, I like to be selfishly for my job. I like to watch the American players succeed and it's been really fun, you know, watching pool is sick.
00:27:55
Speaker
go from, you know, clearly unhappy at Chelsea to watching him. It's just fun to watch him have fun and watch him have fun on the pitch. So, you know, all those guys, you know, watching Musa and Waya and McKinney, it's been really, really fun to see those guys thrive in the league.
00:28:14
Speaker
For sure. I mean, it's shaping up to be a Juve versus Inter title race for the first time in a generation. Do you think it's going to be between these two or do you think that Milan could still get involved with all those Americans you mentioned? I mean, Milan's a really talented team and they're fun to watch. So I wouldn't discount them at all, but certainly trending, you know,
00:28:37
Speaker
Intern you may but you know we're barely past the halfway point so a lot can happen You know over the next few months and who do you think has been the best player in the city of this season so far?
00:28:49
Speaker
You know, that's a
Rapid-fire Q&A
00:28:50
Speaker
great question. I think I'm the wrong person to weigh in on that. OK, fair enough. I don't want to put you in an awkward position. But so to finish off with a little bit of fun, we play this rapid fire game where I just give you two or more options and you pick one. And you don't need to give an explanation if you don't want to. But if you do, it's perfectly fine. OK? Got it. Let's do it. So Diego Maradona or Pele? Pele.
00:29:17
Speaker
Roberto Bajo, Francesco Totti, or Alessandro Del Piero? Del Piero. Cristiano Ronaldo, or Lionel Messi? Messi. Paolo Maldini, or Franco Baresi? Maldini. Who will win the Serie A this season, Inter or Juve? Inter. Serie A team to win the Champions League this season, or the Azzurri to win Euro 2024?
00:29:46
Speaker
Wow, that's a tough one. I'm going to go national team. Nice one. And finally, probably the most contentious question I've asked you today, pineapple on pizza, food heaven or food hell?
00:30:02
Speaker
food hell. That's the right answer. I know that audience. Yes, you do. You sure do. Thank you so much for coming on, Andy. If you have a social media account where people can follow you personally or something else you want to plug, please, the floor is yours.
00:30:18
Speaker
I'm not so active. After working in social for 12 years, I'm kind of retired. I hear you. Thank you so much, Andy, again. Everybody else, we'll be back tomorrow with a full episode for patrons only. So go to patreon.com slash TIFB. Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other. Ciao, ciao.