Juve's lockdown upswing

Italian giant has never been so popular in China after sharpening its fan focus during live-action hiatus

While the coronavirus pandemic has taken a heavy toll on soccer around the world, Italian club Juventus is remarkably emerging from the sport's shutdown in a stronger position than ever as far as its Chinese fan base is concerned.

With Serie A suspended since early March, Juve's content and digital teams have been busy keeping soccer-starved fans engaged online, with tailored content for China particularly proving a big hit.

Last month, Juventus saw a 1.2 million increase in its social media followers to take its global total to 98 million－the largest monthly hike ever by a professional soccer club, according to industry analyst Results Sports. Juve also outperformed its rivals on Weibo, adding 98,000 more followers as the biggest growing soccer team on the Chinese platform in April.

Federico Palomba, Juventus' Asia-Pacific managing director, says, more than just raising people's spirits during lockdown, the online campaigns have innovated by placing fans center-stage.

"Certainly the pandemic has created an unprecedented problem of not being able to play matches, and this is the first time that our industry has faced something like this, but the bright side of this crisis is that we've discovered that the hunger for football has never stopped," Palomba told China Daily via Zoom.

"So we have worked hard in the last couple of months, trying to offer our fans interesting content. We've really pushed hard on the digital and media side. We have developed over 20 original formats－10 of these are dedicated to China alone, so the content is not just translated or localized, it's made specifically for our Chinese fans."

Tapping into its Chinese network of around 40 official fan clubs via an Asia-focused initiative it calls the 'J-Squad', Juve's most popular tailored Chinese content－an interactive fan event entitled 'The China Game Show'－attracted 11.2 million viewers.

Billed as the first such entertainment offering produced for China by a major European soccer club, Palomba claims the significance of the show's success goes beyond the page impressions.