Napoli, De Laurentiis: "Let’s abolish half-time, football have lost the monopoly on attention. A footballer who costs 100 million is not always better than one worth 10 million. Passion fills stadiums, but does not make a club"

Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis spoke in Rome at the TEHA Club about the future of entertainment across cinema and football, his two great passions and, of course, his work.

There, the Napoli owner again leaned into provocation as he pointed to the problems he is running into in his attempt to rethink and revolutionise how football is broadcast to users and fans. These were the words reported by Calcio e Finanza

Vision

"We are here to talk about vision, diversification and how value is created over time. And about how an entrepreneur must operate in a world that is changing ever more quickly. I want to do that through what I know and what I do every day: cinema and football. Two worlds in which I have invested, made decisions and tried to build businesses capable of lasting.

Because when you invest your own money, understanding what is changing becomes a very concrete matter. On their phone or on TV, people have everything at their disposal while sitting comfortably on the sofa. And time is always the same. This is where we have to start. And that also applies when we talk about football. For years we thought like this: I make a good film and people come. I put together a great team and people follow me"

We fight against YouTube, video games, social media...

"A match used to bring a country to a halt. Today, we can no longer take that for granted. Today I'm up against a lad who, from his own bedroom, makes a 30-second video and reaches millions of people. And when Napoli play, exactly the same thing happens. On the pitch, we have to beat Inter , Juventus and AC Milan .

But to win the attention of a 15-year-old, we're also competing with YouTube. We still think in terms of industries: cinema, television, football, video games, social media. The audience don't think like that.

For them, it's all on the same screen. And the screen we now always have in our hands has probably become the most important distribution space in history"

Young people's attention

"Today, a first encounter with a story, an actor, a footballer or a team can last ten seconds. That does not mean young people no longer have any attention span. That explanation is far too easy.

A young person can spend three hours in front of a video game. They can watch ten episodes of a series. They can follow a creator for years. So attention exists. We just no longer have the right to expect it. We have to earn it. I see it with my grandchildren too. We got to know football through the match. New generations can get to know a footballer through a video game, then watch one of his goals on YouTube, then follow him on social media and only then get to the match."

Napoli: passion does not make a club

" When I bought Napoli, I did not have to convince people to love that team. I had to work out how a club with that level of support had gone bankrupt. And make sure it did not happen again. We started again from Serie C1. By 2007 we were in Serie A. Then we established ourselves in Europe, in the Champions League, all the way to the Serie A titles of 2023 and 2025.

I did not create that passion. My job was to build a business around it that could last. Because passion can fill a stadium even in Serie C. But passion alone does not balance the books, does not buy a player, does not build a training centre, does not organise a club. You have to create value. And that is where cinema was very useful to me"

A €100 million player is not always better than a €10 million one

"When I came into football, I knew very little about it. But I knew how to pick people, bring different skills together and keep an investment under control. Cinema had taught me that. A film that costs one hundred million is not necessarily better than a film that costs ten. And a footballer who costs one hundred million is not necessarily ten times better than one who costs ten .

Talent is something you have to know how to spot. And then you need the courage to make decisions. Sometimes even unpopular ones. Because if an entrepreneur waits for everyone to agree with him, it is probably already too late. In twenty years, naturally, we have made mistakes too. You get players, managers, executives and investments wrong. A solid club can put the mistake right. A fragile club can be destroyed by it"

Sport is entertainment

"The Americans understood a long time ago something that we Europeans, and above all we Italians, are sometimes almost afraid to say. Sport is competition. But professional sport is also spectacle. It is entertainment. That does not diminish sport. It makes it stronger.

A champion might stay for five years. The club must exist for 50, 100 years. So you build the brand, the relationship with the city, the merchandising, the content, the hospitality, the commercial relationships, the data, the audience experience. Look at American stadiums. Many are extraordinary".

Let’s cut the interval

"We must have the courage to discuss the 'football product' from every point of view. Starting with the game itself, the length of the match, the interruptions. There are no sacred rules simply because they have existed for a hundred years. If we want to bring the very young closer again, we have to ask ourselves what makes them drift away. Take half-time. Fifteen minutes. But why can't we discuss shortening it, or even scrapping it?

Those at the stadium experience the atmosphere, are together with others, they wait. But what about the kid at home? You stop the match for a quarter of an hour and think he'll stay there waiting for you? He picks up his phone, goes back to the PlayStation, finds something else to do. And then you restart the second half. But in the meantime, he's gone away"