“The sports industry needs a revolution”: inside the Juventus Creator Lab

Last May, Serie A giants Juventus launched the Juventus Creator Lab, a lab for digital creators to work closely with the club’s communications department to take Juventus’ media reach, engagement and storytelling to the next level.

“Given recent trends, the sports industry needs a revolution in its approach,” Mike Armstrong, Juventus’ chief marketing and communications officer, said in a recent interview. “Juventus Creator Lab is unique in the entire industry.”

It was back in 2022 that Juventus first came up with the idea of ​​building a space dedicated to digital creators. Currently, the space takes the form of a square building located right next to the first team’s training center in Turin, Italy, and is painted in the traditional black and white colors both inside and out.

But if what It was clear from the start that how Work remained in progress for several months.

“We tried to build the plane as we flew it,” Armstrong confessed.

It all started with finding out what motivates a younger generation of football fans to support one club over another. Juventus’ extensive research led to a clear answer: content. However, there was also evidence that football fans around the world were increasingly paying attention to what happens outside of the 90 minutes of the match.

“While traditional broadcast studios broadcast the games, we took inspiration from creators to tell more and better stories about athletes,” Armstrong said. “We wanted to highlight the respect and success that creators around the world enjoy.”

In the short term, Juventus Creator Lab’s goal is to “drive traffic and offer more to Juventus fans around the world” by telling the Juventus story. Bianconeri We will be working at all levels with the men’s and women’s teams, the reserves we call ‘Next Gen’, former club players and esports teams.

The new lab will enable Juventus to partner with prominent social media pages, creators and influencers to increase brand awareness and generate content that resonates with the club’s 175 million followers across all digital platforms.

“The goal is to expand our impact through partnerships that we deem strategic,” Armstrong said. “All of our partners are chosen based on the logic of their ability to innovate alongside Juventus.”

In the medium to long term, there is a strong commercial objective behind Juventus Creator Lab to make it a revenue-generating organisation.

As Italian football undergoes a transition from broadcast to digital, due in part to Lega Serie A’s difficulties in reaching financially satisfying deals with domestic television broadcasters, Juventus sees the digital sector as a golden opportunity to secure independent and lucrative sponsorship deals.

“Our focus on digital growth complements the changing viewing patterns we’re seeing around the world,” Armstrong said.

While Juventus is no stranger to releasing original content – ​​last year it released a documentary about striker Federico Chiesa’s return from a serious knee injury – the Juventus Creator Lab will allow it to increase the production of branded content and enable the club to generate revenue from the sale of intellectual property rights.

“We’re able to sell a lot more product than we ever could before,” Armstrong concluded.

While Italian football’s business model remains heavily reliant on sporting results, Armstrong is optimistic about Juventus’ ability to leverage the digital space and ultimately generate revenue streams that are separate from what happens on the pitch.

“We’ve been able to show growth during periods in the past few years where we’ve seen declines in players and performances,” Armstrong said.

As content continues to emerge as a key feature of modern football, Juventus is betting big on storytelling and media reach to meet the demands of its fans, while aiming to unlock the full untapped economic potential of the digital world.