The football club
Fàbregas's team at the Sinigaglia, on the water's edge.
Giannotti, 2026What Como built
Sell the place first
Como's owners started with what the world already knew: the lake.
The Hartono brothers' Djarum group bought the club, then in the third tier, in 2019, for a price estimated at about Rp 5 billion (D-Insights, 2019). Club president Mirwan Suwarso is blunt about the logic.
Nobody knew the team. Everybody knew the region.
As Suwarso puts it, "Lake Como is not a budget destination" (Giannotti, 2026). The club had little fame of its own to sell, so it borrowed the most famous thing in its postcode. I think that was the smartest decision the owners made.
How the business fits together
Built like Disney
Suwarso compares Como to Disney: the football club is the theme park, merchandise is the T-shirts, tourism is the cruise division and media is Disney Plus (Giannotti, 2026). Here is what each piece looks like on the lake.
Curva, the label
The club's in-house fashion label: a €1,500 quilted leather bomber, €300 knitted polos and sailing collections.
Giannotti, 2026SENT Tourism
Pre-match drinks run across five lakeside venues, including a boat at a jetty.
Giannotti, 2026Media
The owners say they "initially bought the club to use it as a TV set". The lake is the backdrop and the content.
Giannotti, 2026Hover or tab through the tiles. Each is a separate business line the club runs alongside the team.
How it was done
Taste, hired on purpose
Como went out and hired taste.
In October 2024 the club named Rhuigi Villaseñor, founder of the streetwear label RHUDE, its Chief Brand Officer (Como 1907, 2024). In his words, the job is "more than just slapping a logo on a jersey" (Como 1907, 2024). That is a working designer, not a marketing department guessing what looks cool.
The collection
Six pieces, one identityShirts, sweatshirts and a boat on the lake. Como sells a way of life around the football, and every piece starts from the same place.
Why it works
A reason to belong before a reason to win
The brand gave people a reason to care before the results did.
Como built an identity first, then used it to attract the people who make the team. Nico Paz, who came through Real Madrid, will stay at Como for 2026/27 at his own request, with Madrid holding a buy-back option for 2027/28 (Real Madrid, 2026). The match day itself is a product: Hugh Grant and Keira Knightley are among recent spectators (Giannotti, 2026).
Where Como's money came from, 2024/25 (€m)
The case against
The brand opened the door. Money walked through it.
The brand opened the door, but the squad was paid for with the owners' money. The club lost €105m in 2024/25 (Calcio e Finanza, 2025) and spent about €214m in the two 2025 transfer windows, on Transfermarkt data (TUTTOmercatoWEB, 2025). Spear's puts losses at around €132m in the most recent accounts, so the exact figure depends on the period used (Giannotti, 2026). A €1,500 Curva leather bomber is luxury pricing (Giannotti, 2026), but the money behind it is the owners', not the brand's.
Verdict
Different by design
For me, Como is what sports marketing looks like when it is done on purpose. Nothing is borrowed from another club. A fashion designer runs the brand, the lake is the backdrop, and every product points the same way. That clarity created opportunities a club of Como's size should never have had: players, partners, visitors and, in 2026, the Champions League. The owners' money made the rise possible. The brand is what made it Como.
The lessonOther clubs should copy the method, not the look: start from what is genuinely yours and build every product around it. Como's next test is turning attention into income. Suwarso aims to break even within two years (Giannotti, 2026), and commercial revenue, not owner funding, should be the number that proves the brand works.
Sources
- Calcio e Finanza (2025) 'Como, bilancio in rosso per 105 milioni nella stagione del ritorno in Serie A', 10 December. Available at: https://www.calcioefinanza.it/2025/12/10/como-bilancio-2025-ricavi-costi-perdite/.
- Como 1907 (2024) 'Rhuigi Villaseñor steps in as Chief Brand Officer for Como 1907', 31 October. Available at: https://comofootball.com/en/rhuigi-villasenor-steps-in-as-chief-brand-officer-for-como-1907/.
- D-Insights (2019) 'More Indonesian conglomerates expand to football business', 21 October. Available at: https://dinsights.katadata.co.id/read/2019/10/21/more-indonesian-conglomerates-expand-to-football-business.
- Excélsior (2026) 'Cesc Fábregas y el Como 1907, a Champions por primera vez', 24 May. Available at: https://www.excelsior.com.mx/deportes/cesc-fabregas-y-como-1907-champions-por-primera-vez.
- Giannotti, L. (2026) 'Football's Como home: how billionaire brothers reinvented Como 1907 as a luxury brand', Spear's, 21 August. Available at: https://spearswms.com/luxury/footballs-como-home-how-billionaire-brothers-reinvented-como-1907-as-a-luxury-brand/.
- Real Madrid (2026) 'Official announcement: Nico Paz', 29 June. Available at: https://www.realmadrid.com/en-US/news/club/announcements/comunicado-oficial-nico-paz-29-06-2026.
- TUTTOmercatoWEB (2025) 'Nessuno spende quanto il Como nel 2025: undicesimo a livello mondiale, davanti a Milan, Real e United'. Available at: https://www.tuttomercatoweb.com/serie-a/nessuno-spende-quanto-il-como-nel-2025-undicesimo-a-livello-mondiale-davanti-a-milan-real-e-united-2195845.
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