Basketball’s ‘Year Zero’ as it awaits NBA dollars

Italian basketball still believes in fairy tales and is awaiting the arrival of NBA Europe, just as, more than eighty years ago, we waited for other Americans to come and save us. The 103rd league season, which begins today with three early fixtures, is sending out some interesting signals, it’s true, but we’re not in fairyland as they’d have us believe when they tell us that the Italian League is the first in Europe to have its own television channel. It is a fine product, but with a subscriber base still too low to be called a success. And even if Federico Ferri, the director of Sky Sport—who has dedicated a channel to basketball (featuring two live matches)—says he is pleased, though not overly so, the other side of the coin is sounding the alarm. Basketball is a sport that vanished for two months from the pages of Italy’s leading sports newspaper over the summer and which, the day after the league’s launch, failed to feature in the main Italian political newspapers. On the other hand, it is a sport that has staked everything on influencers and now prefers to count the ‘reels’ rather than the pages of old newspapers.

We may well be back to square one, but the important thing is not to end up like the orchestra that kept playing whilst the Titanic was sinking. President Petrucci maintains that “this is now the league of the present and the future, because basketball is changing. It has always been the first sport to change every year since the post-war period. This will be the most interesting league of them all, because the arrival of NBA Europe – which everyone said was impossible – is now official”. The summer was less successful for the Italian national teams than hoped, but at least the women’s team played with heart and the wheelchair basketball team won a silver medal at the World Championships. Gianni Petrucci, an incorrigible optimist, looks to the future and is enjoying the sudden emergence of two teams in Rome: “Sport is important when it touches the whole of Italy; the rest is just talk. There are sports that are important but are confined to small provinces; we have it all. Obviously, we’re not like football, but this is a league of the present that looks to the future with major changes ahead.”

It is best not to dwell on how we ended up with two teams in Rome. Brescia (now in Serie A2) and Cremona (which has disappeared) sold their sporting rights, Trieste was abandoned just as things were getting interesting, and seeing two major clubs vanish overnight simply because basketball was no longer viable for their owners is certainly food for thought. Moreover, the future of Rome’s second team remains uncertain, as NBA Europe has yet to select its partner for a project that is still entirely undefined. If we are to listen to a seasoned observer like Dan Peterson, the NBA’s arrival in Europe may not bring positive outcomes: “Look what happened in China after they arrived…”, he says; the outlook is not promising. For now, all we can do is wait and see.

Meanwhile, there is an Italian league to revitalise. There will be new sponsors, including some major ones; there will be three new venues (Venice, Bologna and Cantù), in addition to the one in Tortona which has just hosted the Super Cup finals, whilst we await the completion of the Foro Italico. “I don’t think there’s ever been a time when the basketball world was set to experience a season in which three sports arenas were to be inaugurated,” comments Maurizio Gherardini, the League president, quite rightly, emphasising how crucial it will be to foster cohesion amongst the clubs and adding: “We cannot expect to grow solely on the court: we must improve the quality of the experience, the facilities and everything surrounding the match.” Basketball needs iconic figures to tell its story. But unfortunately, there’s only one Pippo Ricci, and it comes as no surprise that last year’s most successful special programme broadcast by LBA TV was the one dedicated to Dino Meneghin.

The story is even more compelling than current events, and this is precisely what we need to focus on to attract new viewers. The Super Cup final between Milan and Venice was a good promotional event. It was a hard-fought match – perhaps not the most spectacular, but played right up to the last minute of extra time. “I’ve coached in six different countries: there’s no league as fiercely contested as the Italian one. Over the last three years, the champions have averaged eight defeats per season. And 30 per cent of matches are decided by a margin of between one and five points. These figures speak volumes about the standard,” explains Luca Banchi, head coach of the Italian national team, which is chasing World Cup qualification. “I’d like to see full arenas and Italian players being increasingly valued. I’m not in favour of a minimum quota in the rules; I’d rather an Italian player earns his place on merit, even if that makes his coach’s job more difficult.”

Luca Banchi also speaks of a new era for Italian basketball: “This is a special year; for the first time, in an environment that had given the impression of being perhaps a little too stagnant – where we used to complain about not having adequate facilities to promote our sport in terms of attendance and participation – we will have three new venues that I would describe as futuristic. All the ingredients are in place to envisage a new era for Italian basketball.” A new era in which we mustn’t worry ourselves thinking that our best young players have moved to American universities: “Four of our five most frequently used and most productive Under-23s from last season will be playing in America. A further 13 players have left and will be playing in Division One next year – the highest level of university basketball. We should expect this situation to continue for another couple of seasons. But then things will change, and we’ll need to be ready with an attractive league to welcome back our returning players,” analyses the head coach.

Not everyone will end up in the NBA, but we’ll have more mature players and individuals to bolster the league and the national team. We need to look to the future whilst building the present. Let’s not delude ourselves that everything is perfect and that the LBA is the best league in Europe. Let’s work to ensure it truly becomes so. The ‘Wizard’ Bargnani wants to give back what he has received from basketball. He could truly become an excellent executive and perhaps be the first to chart the course. Having his photo taken alongside Gianluca Gazzoli, the LBA’s strategic media adviser, helps, but it is not enough. The opportunity is there. It must not be wasted.