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*** INTRODUCTION TO ITALIAN BASKETBALL ***
by Gianni Pascucci
February 2002
Starting from the 2001-02 season, Italian basketball is divided into two professional Leagues, the main one, named “Serie A”, made of the 19 professional teams with larger
budgets and the best arenas and team organizations, and the second one, formerly the Division 2, named now “Lega 2”, made of 14 teams. Both leagues are based on a
eight months Regular Season in round-robin format, and on a following playoff phase to name the League champion. This season, only one team of Lega 2 (the playoff
winner) will be promoted to Serie A, and only one team of Serie A, the last placed at the end of Reg.Season, will be relegated in Lega 2. Another very interesting
competition is Italian Cup, scheduled for the last week of February, in a “Final Eight” format copied from the Spanish “Copa del Rey”. All the Cup games are telecasted live,
and every Italian team wants stongly to win the Cup, as the first great aim of the season. All the Italian arenas ar quite comfortable and great, compared to the other
European countries. The biggest one is the BPA Palace of Pesaro, an up-to-date facility which contains more than 12,000 people, but even the two Arenas of Bologna, and
the one of Treviso are very nice and well equipped. The medium attendance is now around 3,500 people per game, after Spain the best in Europe.
The absolute novelty of Italian Professional Basketball in 2001-02 is the abolition of the stranger players quotas. Starting from this year, every team can hire a free number of
import players every time they want, the only limit is that in Serie A at least three players with Italian passport have to be registered at the official playing sheet at every
game, and in Lega 2 this minimum number raises to 5. However, considering that every team will play at least 36 games, and that the best ones, competing even in
European Cups, willl play more than 60 games, the total number of players in roster is each team is more that 12, this is why there are 7 or 8 places for guys from USA of
other European countries in every club. Some places more for stranger players are available in the third Italian League, named Serie B, a semi-professional league where can
be registerd only players with Italian passport, but in last years dozens of players coming from South America or USA signed contracts to play in these teams. In none of
the Italian leagues there is a salary cup, each club is free to spend as much money they want, but the wages of the import and domestic players slipped down in last years.
Now, we can consider a medium earning of 10 – 15,000 $ per month for every player from USA, and around 10,000 Euro per month (8,900 $) for every player coming from
Europe in Serie A. In Lega 2, import players earn less than 10,000 per month, sometimes 6-7,000, and domestic players less than the half, and 2-3,000 $ per month is what
can be earned in Serie B by naturalized players. Of couse, the stars of the Serie A can earn more than 100,000 $ per month, sometimes they earn more than 1,000,000 $
per season, but the number of these big contracts is now very limited, and if the general financial trend will not change, it’s very difficiult to forecast a new raising up of the
players’ wages in near future. And the Italian Players Union, named GIBA, is strongly asking an increasing of the domestic players minimum quota for the upcoming
season, to make more playing time to the rare young players in the country. Another change expected is a reduction in the number of the clubs of Serie A, to reach a more
stable financial situation in the best league of the country. Some of the 19 teams, in fact, have now some money problems.
In general, the situation of Italian basketball is not as good as some years ago, due to the lacking of new players, as a consequence of the decadence of the basketball
schools and of the irrational signing of mediocre European players by all the Italian clubs in the first years of the Bosman era. Now, we have a quickly ageing National Team,
and a very limited number of domestic players as a replacement of the present group of veterans. And it’ s a real pity, because Italian basketball coaches have now gained
an unanimous respect around the continent, thanks to their grounding and their ability in running pro teams.
Another negative note is that Italian League games are telecasted almost exclusively on the Satelllite Sport Channel of RAI, the State Channel, two times per week, Serie A
on Sunday night, and Lega 2 on Sunday lunch time, at 12,00. This is not liked by Italian fans, forced to buy a Sat receiver and a dish to see some games, but Italian
League doesn’ t manage to sign better TV contracts, due to the dominance of soccer on every national sport sources. And the trend isn’t expected to change in near future.
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