The impact of digitalisation on professional football clubs

In the current digital economy, every sort of organization today must invest in digitalization in order to remain competitive, to enhance business operations, and to increase profitability. Even within professional football clubs, the use of new technologies has become essential, both from a sports point of view, to improve players’ performance and team results, and, from an economic point of view, to improve company management and increase revenues. The objective of this study, which employs a quantitative research approach, is to identify the sporting, economic, and financial performance measures on which the digitalization of these sectors has a significant impact. Digitalisation was analysed from the perspective of intellectual capital, a general indicator of digitalization was created and calculated for each of the 20 Serie A clubs. It was then associated with the key economic, financial, and sporting performance factors. The analysis showed a significant positive correlation with the following variables: i) final placement; ii) number of goals scored in the season; iii) turnover; iv) annual costs of players and coaches; and v) annual costs of players and coaches plus their depreciation. These results provide insight into how digitalisation is pivotal for professional football clubs and may prove useful for managers and board members of such clubs, academic researchers and practitioners.