WHY DID DANNY GREEN WEAR IBRAHIMOVIC’S JERSEY?

What do the NBA and Serie A football have in common? Apparently, very little or nothing at all. The NBA is dynamic, competitive, and balanced; Serie A, on the other hand, is more classic, worn-out, and polarized. The NBA is the quintessential closed-franchise model, a league that has grown enormously in popularity, fans, and revenue over the last thirty years. Serie A is the most European of leagues, with relegations and promotions that leave little room for competitiveness, and many historic clubs are struggling to repeat past glories, long gone, when they were the dominators of Europe. Exactly, these two competitions have nothing in common; so why did Danny Green, the newly crowned NBA champion with the Los Angeles Lakers, show up at the arena before Game 3 of the Finals wearing AC Milan’s new third jersey? It wasn’t even the first time; this happened in August before another playoff game, when the basketball player arrived at the arena wearing Zlatan Ibrahimović’s jersey. He might seem like a long-time Milan supporter, but that’s not the case. Green is an athlete sponsored by Puma, the same company that provides the technical gear for the Milan football team. But that’s not all — the basketball player is also under contract with Roc Nation, an international agency that, just a few months ago, signed a partnership agreement with Milan.

But what is Roc Nation? Founded in 2008 by American rapper Jay-Z, Roc Nation is an agency that manages the interests of various professionals in the entertainment field, with a primary focus on musicians but not limited to them. Since 2013, the agency has expanded its business into the sports world, and in 2018, it began collaborating with famous football players like Lukaku and Bernardeschi. The agency doesn’t just handle athletes’ sports interests but also pays great attention to their image.

The collaboration between Roc Nation and A.C. Milan began in July 2020. At that time, the club stated: “The cornerstones of this new partnership will be philanthropy, music programming, merchandising collaborations, brand amplification, creative activities, digital strategy execution, commercial sales, and cultural events.” The objective is clear: reposition the club’s brand to make it an icon of pop culture, not just associated with the sporting sphere. Milan is currently undergoing a rebranding process, and to do so effectively, it has chosen a path with few precedents in the sports world: collaborating with an agency primarily focused on individual athletes. The choice itself is already innovative, and the goals are ambitious.

Let’s try to understand why Milan feels this need. A quick look at the club’s social networks shows that the club’s digital fanbase is solid, especially thanks to its Facebook page with 25 million “likes.” However, this is an older social network, less trendy and frequented by older people. This suggests that most of those followers became attached to Milan in the early 2000s when the team dominated European football. If we visit Milan’s Instagram page, we can see that the brand is not as popular or attractive among younger users. The followers on this social platform, which is more dynamic and youthful, are only 8.9 million, a small number compared to other major European clubs.

Thus, repositioning the brand is necessary to regain the strength that once made Milan one of the most recognized teams in the world, with fans spread across all continents. Clearly, success on the field is a key factor in attracting younger fans to the team, but that’s not all. Therefore, working on the brand, regardless of results, is essential. To achieve this, the club has turned to Roc Nation to help define a digital strategy and expand its reach. The agency is working with Milan to reposition the brand, redefining the values associated with it. Since the collaboration began, many changes have taken place, and various initiatives have been implemented. Danny Green’s jersey is just one example of what Jay-Z’s team has accomplished.

However, Roc Nation does not create content, which remains exclusively the club’s responsibility. An interesting example of engaging fans through social media is the introduction of quizzes on Instagram stories. Additionally, Milan decided to leverage its strong history filled with champions and successes. To do so, the club increased the number of posts highlighting past victories and “firsts” by the great players who graced the pitch at Milanello over the years. If the past is a strength of the club, the present has also been well represented. A clear example of this was the seven posts dedicated to the summer signing: Sandro Tonali. He was the perfect player, not only from a sporting perspective but also in terms of image. Tonali, just 20 years old, represents both the past, as he was a fan of Milan’s great Carlo Ancelotti team as a child, and the future of the club. At Via Aldo Rossi, Massara and Maldini hope they’ve signed the midfielder for the next ten years. The results of this strategy have been clear, with the club’s Instagram account gaining 130,000 followers in a single day. Since the partnership began, the account has gained about a million followers, a very positive figure, thanks in part to the team’s excellent results on the field.

Also, interesting in terms of brand repositioning was the launch of the new season’s jerseys. For each jersey, a unique communication campaign was launched on social media, several days in advance, to create anticipation among fans and link each shirt to a core value of the brand. For the home jersey, the club decided to create an air of mystery, only revealing a few details of the kit while emphasizing its connection to the city of Milan. The home kit features black stripes adorned with designs reminiscent of the famous Galleria, one of the city’s symbols. The goal is to strengthen the link between the team and the city, transferring the values of innovation and tradition that characterize Milan to the club’s brand. For the away jersey, which is white, the club used the great champions of the past as ambassadors, reminding younger fans of the importance of the kit worn in memorable European finals. The idea was to associate the brand with values of tradition and a rich history of success, which should be ingrained in the club’s DNA. For the third jersey, inspired by Milanese fashion, the campaign featured models and was more focused on pop culture. Each jersey thus summarized a key element that Milan and Roc Nation wanted to associate with the brand: the connection to the city, a history filled with success and champions, and a youthful, pop image.

The club, through its executives, is also trying to pursue these three values in the construction of the team, thus reinforcing the desired brand associations with strong coherence between communication and actions. The squad is filled with young players, some of whom already have strong ties to the club and the city, while also including more experienced players, with Zlatan Ibrahimović being a standout: an undisputed champion who links the club’s past and present.

The path taken by Milan is quite different from that of their city rivals, Inter. On September 28, 2017, Inter launched Inter Media House. This is an internal solution aimed at strengthening Inter’s image through the creation of digital content for use on the club’s social pages. Over the past three years, the videos created by Media House have represented a turning point, becoming part of a broader and well-defined digital strategy. This shift was particularly evident in the content related to the presentation of new players and special events like Christmas and the derby against Milan.

The partnership between Roc Nation and Milan is still in its early stages, but it already seems very effective with clear objectives. We will see in the coming years if the results will meet expectations.