"Make our sport increasingly popular," Binaghi wants to make tennis as popular as football in Italy
Italy stands out as the top country in team competitions for several years. For the second time in a row, the transalpine nation has won both the Davis Cup and the BJK Cup. Moreover, the performances throughout the season of Jannik Sinner, Jasmine Paolini, and Lorenzo Musetti, to name a few, have been successful with the Italian population, who are watching more and more tennis on television.
"Flavio Cobolli has nothing to envy Gianluca Scamacca"
Angelo Binaghi, head of the Italian tennis federation, has big ambitions and wants to make tennis a sport at least as attractive as football in the country. The Italian national football team, which failed to qualify for the World Cups in 2018 and 2022, will also have to go through playoffs to try to reach North America next summer. The performances of the football team are attracting less and less interest, unlike tennis, which is taking up more and more space in the minds of Italians.
"Flavio Cobolli has nothing to envy Gianluca Scamacca (current striker for Atalanta Bergamo), with all due respect to the latter. We claim the same rights as the national football team, because our goal is to make our sport increasingly popular. 49% of Open Economics revenue was generated by broadcasting matches free-to-air on television, on Super Tennis and Raiuno.
Seeing tennis monopolize the evening on the first channel is one of my dreams come true. This makes us understand how important it is, to broaden the base of interested people and players, to make our champions visible to everyone. A recent survey by Nielsen showed a strong reduction in the gap between tennis and football. We are getting there," Binaghi rejoiced in an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport.
