Roma President Jim Pallotta admits they “frankly screwed up” by focusing on the Stadio della Roma before finding a shirt sponsor.
He spoke at the launch of a new Integrated Impact Report into the club’s impact on the city.
“I got an advance copy of the report and it’s fantastic,” said Pallotta. “This is the first time this has ever been done by a sports club anywhere in the world. We are proud to be involved.
Roma President Jim Pallotta admits they “frankly screwed up” by focusing on the Stadio della Roma before finding a shirt sponsor.
He spoke at the launch of a new Integrated Impact Report into the club’s impact on the city.
“I got an advance copy of the report and it’s fantastic,” said Pallotta. “This is the first time this has ever been done by a sports club anywhere in the world. We are proud to be involved.
“We are at the beginning. We have a long way to go. We have a lot of ideas. We can’t accomplish what we want for Rome without the help from a lot of people in here.
“Most of you know me as the stupid American that came to Italy to buy AS Roma. You have to understand I came from a neighborhood in Boston that was 100% Italian. I always considered myself Italian, first and foremost – so do my kids and so do my parents.
“In a lot of ways it is coming back full-circle. I feel a responsibility to Rome, and Roma, and Italy, to give something back, to be part of trying to build something and not just AS Roma, but the community.”
Pallotta opened up to questions from the students in the venue, but with the rules: No Press, no questions about Spalletti and no questions about Totti.
He was asked about the lack of a shirt sponsor at Roma, which has presumably cost the club an important revenue stream.
“Simply put, the strategy that was put in place at the beginning with the agency we hired was wrong, trying to connect the shirt sponsor to the stadium.
“The second mistake was we really thought we’d have approval on the stadium well over a year ago, but the change of Mayor and a few other things delayed that.
“What we had done with the stadium was focused and concentrated on the commercial side on the whole digital fabric of the stadium. We’ve literally spoken to over 150 companies all over the world for the stadium – not for the naming, but for the equipment we’re using on the stadium.
“We focused too much on that, thinking we’d have approval over a year ago. Over the last couple of months we’ve spent more time focusing on the shirt and we’ve had 11 or 12 really detailed proposals.
“This morning I had a call with a potential sponsor we had several meetings with over in Asia. I feel good about the shirt for the upcoming season, but frankly at the end of the day, we just screwed up.”
Pallotta also revealed some unexpected plans for huge events in Rome to raise funds for their charity arm, Roma Cares.
“We had this idea and had some discussions, as there’s a real opportunity to do something maybe a year away to have a friendly at the Circus Maximus with a team like Real Madrid, Barcelona or Bayern Munich, someone like that.
“Then we want to do an event in the Colosseum, whether it’s Springsteen unplugged, Jay Z or somebody like that, we believe and had discussions with the right people in the United States that we could have a three-hour contract and stream it live with a pay-per-view around the world.
“If you had 50 million people around the world paying $10, although I think it’ll be more for a once in a lifetime event, we would raise $50m for Roma Cares and that would go to the city and helping to rebuild some of the antiquities that are falling down.”