Como 1907 - A Case Study
"A football club in a city of 85,000 people has enormous difficulty becoming sustainable with football alone, but we're very fortunate to be located in a place where the city itself is a brand."
Como 1907 President Mirwan Suwarso.
On the banks of Lake Como, there is a football club shaking things up and taking a novel approach to its off-pitch business model. After a third bankruptcy in 2019, Como 1907 was acquired by its present owner, who quickly cleared its debt and set about renovating its image, infrastructure and long-term ambitions.
Geography served as the gamechanger, after all, Lake Como is a global brand in its own right. This key insight propelled the leadership of Como 1907 to ask a pivotal question: why focus on just football, when you can position the game within a luxury ecosystem to create an aspirational lifestyle brand?
“Como is not just building a lifestyle brand for themselves; they are building the infrastructure to sell that model to the wider global football industry.”
The Commercial Approach
The club had to innovate and explore alternative commercial infrastructure to negotiate its way to the top. Tapping into the local, aspirational tourism industry, they are exploring how to seamlessly integrate partnerships with a sustainable approach to profit generation.
To this end, they have considered how sponsors can align with promoting the club and its location. One example is their partnership with Uber, the transport behemoth, which signed a three-year front-of-shirt deal with the club in 2024, their first in Italian football. The reasoning? As ‘Official Mobility Partner’, their joint strategy promotes the destination (and wider region) beyond the club, even providing advantageous service perks for fans and tourists on matchdays.
Cultural Retail Approach
Previously, there was no retail presence, but now you can find four shops selling club apparel in the Como city centre, targeting both fans and an inevitable abundance of tourists. The club is a leader in exploiting the intersection between football and fashion.
In October 2024, Rhuigi Villaseñor, founder of LA luxury streetwear label RHUDE, was named Chief Brand Officer. He is a minority shareholder, with a brief covering the group's fashion, consumer goods and travel businesses. The club has already done collaborations with RHUDE, producing merchandise that embodies luxury and fashion (each shirt from the recent collaboration with Adidas retailed for €275). This new approach to retail has so far delivered an impressive annual return of €3.4 million, a fraction of the league heavyweights (AC, Inter, Juventus & Roma), but, despite being a newcomer to the league, outpacing many of the established Serie A clubs.
Following this, Como has recently launched RHUDE 4 FANS, Villaseñor's design model packaged and licensed to Tottenham, Everton and LAFC, among others, targeting a global audience. The collections are designed to include a range of elevated fan apparel and lifestyle pieces, distributed through select retail partners, high-end department stores, club shops, and direct-to-consumer channels. It is a new collaborative model designed to reposition club merchandise as a premium business focused on sport, fashion and culture.
Como is not just building a lifestyle brand for themselves; they are building the infrastructure to sell that model to the wider global football industry.
The Hospitality Experience
Como is well known for being the playground of the rich and famous, and the club have capitalised on this by tapping into a revolving door of A-list celebrities visiting the lake (Hugh Grant, Michael Fassbender and Keira Knightley among others). The club have ensured that they are pictured at games enjoying their hospitality, promoting the experiential assets of both club and location to their audiences on a global stage. The Sinigaglia Stadium itself sits so close to the water that its audience can overlook the lake from inside the stadium.
As a result, much of the matchday experience is built around the glamour of the lake itself. For example, the VIP Matchday Experience centres on Villa Carminati, a historic lakeside property metres from the stadium, combining pitch-side warm-up access with a fine-dining culinary reception overlooking the water.
The lake is the product. Football is the occasion.
And the football itself?
Of course, playing well and winning trophies is also integral to a brand’s success. And Como 1907 is innovating in gameplay, as well as image.
The club are coached by World Cup winner Cesc Fabregas, who oversaw their return to Serie A last summer with a record outlay of over €100 million - outspending Inter, Juventus and AC Milan. They run a club model that couples experience with young talent who have a high resale value. This explains their recent three-year partnership with the exemplar of this approach, Dutch giant Ajax, centering on youth development and shared philosophy.
What Should Be the Industry Take?
The leadership of Como are playing the long game on the club strategy (they aim to reach sustainable profitability in the next three years). It must be noted that the most recent 2024/25 financials did record a €105 million loss. However, these figures are predominantly due to player acquisitions, wages and stadium upgrades associated with promotion to the top tier.
The Como 1907 model serves as a fascinating blueprint for how an underdog on the pitch can diversify their approach to sustainable revenue growth. By taking advantage of its prestigious location and leveraging a wider non-football commercial platform, the club has been able to tap into a truly global sports entertainment ecosystem, mixing with some of the biggest footballing giants.
It remains to be seen whether this approach will ultimately pay dividends and enable them to hit their sustainable profitability goals, but for now, the hope is that their ‘calcio on the lake’ strategy will continue building a Como 1907 dolce vita on and off the pitch.