Juventus Stadium

[King Binny]

Juventus opened its new stadium with a friendly Thursday against Notts County, the English club that provided its white-and-black jerseys more than 100 years ago.

The 40,200-seat facility was built on the site of the former Stadio delle Alpi, on the outskirts of Turin, at a cost of €120 million ($168 million).

The first modern football stadium in Italy, it features 84 luxury boxes, a commercial center to be opened next month and two restaurants in addition to normal bars with eating areas.

With no running track, the seats are close to the pitch and the benches are in the first rows of the stands like at some English stadiums.

Juventus wore pink jerseys until 1903when it asked one of its players, Englishman John Savage, if he knew anyone who could supply shirts in more resistant colors. Savage had a friend in Nottingham send the black-and-white kits that the Magpies still wear and Juventus has worn for every one of its record 27 Italian league titles.

Juventus will play its first official match in the new stadium — which has not been named yet — against Parma on Sunday to open Serie A.

Founded in 1862, Notts County plays in the third tier of English football.

The new stadium, modelled on the likes of modern grounds such as the Allianz Arena in Munich or London's Wembley, will help the team on the pitch according to Juve president Andrea Agnelli.

"The new stadium can give us 10 points a season," he said.

His belief is that by owning their home stadium, Juve will be able to exploit the commercial aspects of such a move and hence earn more money and become more competitive in the transfer market.

And that is something Juve need following successive seventh-placed finishes seeing them miss out on the Champions League two seasons in a row.

This summer they also missed out on a host of big signings, unable to offer the salaries or the challenges top players were looking for.

However, the 41,000-capacity venue does at least give them an advantage over their major rivals AC Milan and Inter Milan who share the San Siro stadium owned by the city of Milan.

"Italy is an anomaly. In the big European leagues 25-27 percent of revenue comes from the stadium, in Italy it's just 13 percent," explained the club's new commercial director Francesco Calvo.

Calvo expects Juve to increase their stadium receipts from 11 million euros last season to 32 million euros in this campaign, thanks to the new stadium.

"It's the stadium that will change football," he added.

"With 85 percent of 4,000 boxes sold during this time of recession, that's a great success."

That's a good start for a team that despite being the best-supported in Italy are strangers to a sell-out crowd.

Not since the good old days of the Stadio Comunale, before the delle Alpi was built for the 1990 World Cup, have Juve been able to sell-out a stadium.

Even with the modest size of the Olimpico (less than 30,000 places) Juve struggled to get a sell-out even for their biggest Champions League games or clashes with the Milan teams.

It will certainly be a relief for fans who never took to either the delle Alpi or the Olipico.

Despite boasting millions of fans across Italy, Juve rarely filled more than a third of the 70,000 capacity delle Alpi.

Supporters complained it was difficult to get to and that the unused running track surrounding it kept them too far away from the action.

But they didn't like the Olimpico either, which was a rebuilt version of the old Comunale and inaugurated for the 2006 Winter Olympics and shared with Torino.

Juventus Stadium, Lo spettacolo della cerimonia di inaugurazione - The opening cermony show

 

[keniget]

40k for Italy's most successful side?

Why dont Italians go to games?

 

[Woland]

What a terrible opening ceremony.

As for why they don't go - the stadia might be one of the reasons. They really are all shit.

 

[Mystic]

[quote author=keniget link=topic=46809.msg1396255#msg1396255 date=1315556257]
40k for Italy's most successful side?

Why dont Italians go to games?
[/quote]

They usually stab each other before they arrive.

 

[Akakabooto]

[quote author=keniget link=topic=46809.msg1396255#msg1396255 date=1315556257]
40k for Italy's most successful side?

Why dont Italians go to games?
[/quote]

Because the games in Italy are hardly family events. Lots of people are actually afraid to go.

 

[doctor_mac]

[quote author=Mystic link=topic=46809.msg1396261#msg1396261 date=1315556639]
[quote author=keniget link=topic=46809.msg1396255#msg1396255 date=1315556257]
40k for Italy's most successful side?

Why dont Italians go to games?
[/quote]

They usually stab each other before they arrive.
[/quote]

Hahaha

 

[IGotALuvlyBunchOfCoconuts]

Leaonardo was saying that Italian familes werent preotected enough to go to the games. Too many cunts!
Italy sucks!

 

[King Binny]

Almost 75% of the stadium cost is paid by naming rights. The weird thing is they sold it to a middleman company and the stadium does not have a confirmed sponsored name as yet. Will be known as Juventus Arena for the being.

On a sidenote, as the Juve fans noted, 75m for 15 yrs is pretty low - 5m every 15 yrs.

The agreement was announced one month ago and today in Milan Juventus and Sportfive Italy officially presented the commercial alliance that will tie the Club and the Company for fifteen years.

Across this period Sportfive will pay Juventus 75 million Euros, in exchange for exclusive naming rights on the new Stadium.

Sportfive, who already have several naming right projects, especially in Germany, for instance in Hamburg, Dortmund and Frankfurt, will pick Juventus' new Stadium's title sponsor name, to be applied from the 2011/12 season, when construction work will end. «This is an absolutely innovative partnership project – Juventus Jean–Claude Blanc M.D. declared – confirming our intention of promoting a new and completely groundbreaking concept of Stadium entertainment».

Apart from handling the naming rights, the agreement also posits that Juventus and Sportfive will cooperate in managing the VIP Hospitality area in the new Stadium, and that they will join forces to organize a yearly football event, using their specific experience: Juventus in top-level football, Sportifive in the marketing of the event. «This long-term agreement with one of the most renowned football brands such as Juventus - remarked Spotifive's Chief Executive Officer Richard Worth – is another significant step for us in terms of fully developing our Company at international level».