BOLOGNA (ITALPRESS) – The appetizer is the Super Cup, then in a week it’s the championship’s turn. It’s basketball time in Bologna, where all Serie A clubs gathered for the presentation of the 2024-25 season. A season that will be inaugurated by the Italian Supercup scheduled for the weekend at the Unipol Arena in Casalecchio di Reno, with “more than 12,000 tickets sold, 80 percent capacity,” the words of Umberto Gandini, president of the Basketball League, who at the opening wanted to express the closeness of the entire movement to the people again affected by the flood. “But the major sporting events we are hosting this week do not hinder relief efforts, so we want to focus on sports,” stressed Giammaria Manghi, head of the Emilia Romagna Region political secretariat. “It is not only Bologna that has a love for basketball, we will also host a grouping of the Women’s European Championship and we have a partnership with Virtus and Reggiana that carry our name in Europe. There is a willingness to focus on sports also as a factor of GDP.” Word then went to the teams, starting with those who will contend for the first trophy of the season, with Milan taking on Venezia tomorrow at 6 p.m., while in the evening it will be the turn of Napoli and Virtus. “We have all done a preparation together after many years,” said Olimpia’s GM, Christos Stavroupoulos. “We have eight new players and we have to work a lot. We will give everything for the Supercup, which is a title, but it does not affect the rest of the season.” “It’s an important competition, one of the three national goals,” emphasizes on the Virtus front Luca Baraldi, “Winning last year allowed us to get off to a very good start. We were also able to make a more homogeneous preparation. We have as competitors important teams like Milan, but at the company level we have many similarities. Italian basketball is growing and maybe we should have a Final Eight instead of a Final Four because of the beauty of the teams. However, this Super Cup will be a parameter to understand the starting grids of the championship.” A championship that has received praise from Fip president Gianni Petrucci: “They are professionals, there are very good account management, teams that are always getting stronger. I think basketball is improving even more than soccer. Go ahead, also because national team players come from these teams.” “The league is growing because the data show us that and they are growing,” Gandini further emphasizes.Numbers like the +9 percent on attendance (the highest since the 1990s) or the +50 percent presence on social say a lot. “The product is liked because access to social, apps are increasing and the numbers are also increasing with respect to attendance at the arenas,” Gandini continues.Thanks to Dazn and Discovery, viewers have ample choice. From a sports point of view Trapani is back after 32 years, Trieste is back after a year. The Bologna-Milan duopoly continues, but the number of teams coming to the starting lineup with new ambitions is many in other parts of Europe as well. This is Unipol’s fifth championship, and we have brought a new championship graphic.” “It has been four years lived intensely, we expect even better results for the growing trend, also for our editorial products,” confirms Vittorio Verdone, director of Corporate Communication and Media Relations Unipol.- Photo Ipa Agency -(ITALPRESS).
