The Asian Market : Premier League 1 - 0 Serie A

Beep beep, beep, beep, a familiar yet always unwelcome noise wakens me from a deep sleep, it's 3:40am on a Monday morning and the noise is my alarm clock. Why am I getting up at this ungodly hour you may ask? To watch my beloved Juventus of course, tonight’s opponents are Genoa at the Marassi.

I make my way out of the bedroom as quietly as possible and sit myself down on the sofa, still untangling the cobwebs from my head as I switch on the TV and find the channel showing the game.

The encounter itself was one worthy of curing a person with severe insomnia, that was until Andrea Pirlo stepped up in the 89th minute and curled a trademark free kick into the top corner, which caused me to run around the living room, silently screaming like a deranged lunatic at around 5.25am.

Usually only one outcome

Scenes like this have been a regular occurrence since I moved to South East Asia in March 2013, with Juve usually playing in the 8.45pm slot in Italy on a Saturday or Sunday night, I have been systematically destroying my sleeping pattern ever since.

During those wee hours in the morning I often wonder how many Asians get up to watch a Serie A match at this time. Viewing figures have been hard to come by but I would suspect the answer is not many. It's one thing for a Juve fan of nearly twenty years and who was born and bred in a country where Football is the national sport to sacrifice sleep, it's entirely another for someone who lives thousands of miles away, where Basketball or Table Tennis is the national game and has only a fleeting interest in a team to do the same.

The only time one gets to watch Juventus at a 'suitable' time is when they play in the 3pm kick off slot on a Sunday afternoon (which is rare), when factoring in the time difference, is being played at 10 or 11pm in this part of the world. Juve very rarely play in the early kickoff slot on a Sunday morning, but is a perfect time in the Orient.

This is not a successful strategy to win new fans, the league has to consider changing its TV schedule if it is ever going to seriously challenge the Premier League's stronghold in Asia.

England's top flight has been criticised over the years and a lot of it is merited, but one thing it has

English clubs have a huge
following in Asia

done better than any other league is to recognise the potential in and cater to the Asian market, namely by hosting pre season tournaments in Hong Kong, Thailand, China and Malaysia but more importantly is its TV scheduling. The big games in England are all shown at reasonable times, ranging from 9pm to midnight (1 to 4pm UK time), thus ensuring the maximum potential to be watched by hundreds of millions of people.

Having lived in Beijing, if you went to any pub showing football on a Sunday evening, it would be packed with expats and local people huddled together around multiple Televisions, watching the Premier League. I’d safely say this is replicated all over the continent.

It also has to be noted, that from the experience of living first in China and now in South Korea, the demand for the English language and the need for people to be associated with anything English-related gives the Premier League a massive advantage over it's rivals, but Serie A does not help itself.

New Inter president Erick Thohir, himself hailing from Indonesia, recognises that things must change in Italy, in a recent interview he said ''In Italy, all the best games are in the evening, so the catchment area cannot increase''.

Italy in recent years has tried to break into the Asian market by hosting the Italian Supercup in Beijing, in 2009, 2011, 2012 and is penciled in for a return this summer, the event has always drawn on great crowds, but it isn't enough. As Thohir said, the best way to gain new interest in Calcio would be to move the big games away from the Saturday and Sunday night kickoff slots.

Inter's head honcho wants Italy to modernise

Up until the middle of the 1990s, every game in Serie A was played at 3pm on a Sunday until the rise of pay-TV put an end to the decades old tradition, a return to that format in the modern era is highly unlikely due to the amount of power TV companies now possess and the clubs themselves but giving the Milan derby or a top of the table clash an earlier kick off time would boost the international status of the league unquestionably.

Scheduling the bigger clashes at reasonable times won't solve Calcio's international appeal overnight, there are many other factors to consider before it attempts to overtake the Premier League and La Liga as the people’s choice of league, but it most undoubtedly would help.

My sleeping pattern would also greatly appreciate it.