30 Years of Fantacalcio: A Stunning Example of High-Impact Innovation!

There are certain innovations destined for success that seem endless, capable of enduring the changes and increasingly frequent technological evolutions of our time. One of these is undoubtedly Fantacalcio. A success story that has been going strong for 30 years without a crisis.

It was in 1988 that Riccardo Albini, along with some friends at the “Goccia d’Oro” bar in Milan, invented the game that still captivates (or sparks arguments among) millions of fantacalcio managers today. Two years later, in 1990, the first book explaining the game’s rules was published. It was called Serie A – Fantacalcio. Ten thousand copies were printed, but only 2,500 were sold. However, since that year, approximately 15,000 people have become fanta-coaches.

The breakthrough came in 1994, thanks to an agreement with La Gazzetta dello Sport. Since then, it has grown steadily, reaching over 3 million players in Italy by 2017, many of whom actively manage multiple teams across various competitions.

How was it possible to create such an innovation that could withstand the advent of the internet, social networks, and the endless possibilities for entertainment and fun offered online?

Fantacalcio has not only survived these challenges but has thrived with the advancement of technology.

In fact, several Apps have been developed to manage leagues and tournaments among friends, in addition to official fanta-leagues like the one run by Gazzetta dello Sport. Various websites have also emerged offering tips on managing fantacalcio auctions and selecting lineups for Sunday, with a growing number of fantacalcio managers frequently seeking news about their favorite players.

Looking back at the history of fantacalcio, we can identify some typical elements that characterize the process of generating high-impact innovations.

Riccardo Albini didn’t conduct market research or ask customers what they wanted when he conceived of fantacalcio. He made a proposal to the market. In fact, after seeing a book about the rules of a fantasy game related to American football at a video game fair in Chicago, he decided it would be interesting to apply the same logic to the world of soccer. And so, in 1988, he and seven friends proposed this new fantasy game. Having enjoyed themselves so much, they decided to do it again.

Rarely do great innovations arise from listening to the customer. Customers do not in fact know what they want. They don’t know the technologies. They do not know what it is possible to achieve. It’s difficult for customers to be able to give directions about a revolutionary product, while they are very good at giving suggestions on how to incrementally improve existing products and services. Ford’s quote is famous in this sense “If I had asked customers what they wanted, they would have said faster horses!”.
Great innovations usually do not arise from listening to customers but from proposals made to customers.
During the MacBook Air presentation, Steve Jobs emphasized this concept: “one thing you won’t find in the MacBook Air is the CD player […]. But you know what? We think that most users will not miss it. We think they don’t need it”. Steve Jobs makes a proposal (“we think”) to Apple customers about what is useful to them or not (in this case the CD player).
Without going overseas, it is possible to see how Italian companies, characterized by the ability to continuously innovate, also operate by making proposals to customers.

Ernesto Gismondi, owner of Artemide – one of the leading Italian companies in the lighting sector in Italy –, says “we do not look at the needs of the market. We make proposals to people”.

The same happened with fantacalcio.

Fantacalcio is not just a game but combines elements of the Business System –such as the possibility of participating in paid leagues with the victory of final prizes – and elements of experiential games that have also anticipated Social Networks. Albini himself states this in an interview

“Fantacalcio has also served to increase average knowledge of what happens in Serie A. Before, many people only read the news of the big teams, now you also need to know the small ones to understand how all the players play. There must have been some broken friendships over a stolen player or a last-minute goal, but many others are kept on their feet, perhaps from a distance, thanks to Fantacalcio.
It’s a great excuse to feel each week and be together at least once a year.
It is a social network that was born long before social networks.”

Hardly any major innovations that are successful and long-lasting are based solely on one product. Much more often there is the clever combination of different elements that take inspiration from elements linked to the Business System, that is, how the company creates its solution in a way that is marginalized by the sale of the same, Customer Experience System, that is, how customers experience and gain experience of the company’s solution not only during the use phase but within the entire life cycle of the solution itself, and obviously Product System, that is, the elements that characterize the solution developed by the company. The more I can act and combine more of the elements mentioned together, the more I will have been able to create a broad-spectrum solution. Broad-spectrum solutions are the result of integrating multiple elements and are therefore difficult to copy and maintain their value on the market longer. Let’s think about Ipod. Ipod became the best-selling MP3 player in the world not because it was the most advanced or best product. IPOD achieved market leadership thanks to strong integration with iTunes, which enabled innovative business models –purchasing single songs for $0.99 – and a different music experience – thanks to playlists and the iTunes-to-IPOD music synchronization system. The same could be said for the Nespresso pod system which focuses not only on the product but also on very strong experience elements – such as Nespresso Points.