As the NBA plots its European expansion and EuroLeague digs in to defend its turf, some team owners see an opening to elevate their clubs onto a bigger stage.
Matt Rizzetta, the Italian-American owner of Napoli Basketball, is trying to position his club as a candidate for either the NBA’s new project or EuroLeague. Rizzetta, 43, met earlier this week with the CEO of EuroLeague, he tells Front Office Sports. He was joined at the meeting by two members of his company, Underdog Global Partners: general partner and advisor Daniel Doyle, and Rosario Procino, who is managing director of the firm’s European portfolio.
“We had a very positive meeting,” Rizzetta says.
A source familiar with EuroLeague’s thinking confirmed the meeting with Rizzetta took place, and says EuroLeague is weighing potential expansion. Currently, there are 20 total teams (13 permanent shareholders and 7 others who make the league through other means, such as winning the EuroCup or receiving short-term licenses). The source says EuroLeague could expand to as many as 24 teams by the season after next.
Still, EuroLeague isn’t Rizzetta’s only focus.
“The next step is hopefully to get in front of the NBA in the next month or so,” he tells FOS. “I feel our group can sell Naples in a way very few cities can offer.”
For Rizzetta, the pitch starts with infrastructure. He says he has spent the past five months working with the city of Naples and its mayor, Gaetano Manfredi, about building a new 12,000-seat arena near the Amalfi Coast—a tourism hub Rizzetta believes would bolster the club’s international appeal. (The team currently plays in the PalaBarbuto arena, which was built in 2003 and is more than an hour from the Amalfi Coast.)
Rizzetta expects the new arena to be completed in three to four years and cost up to $234 million (€200 million). He says funding is “almost all committed,” through a mixture of private funds and public sector funding and grants.
The project is being designed to meet the standards of both leagues—the NBA in particular has made clear that its teams need appropriate arena infrastructure, while EuroLeague stipulates that its licensed teams must have arenas with capacity for at least 10,000 spectators. Although the PalaBarbuto arena only seats a little over 5,000 people, Rizzetta tells FOS EuroLeague “agreed in principle” that Napoli could have a conditional exemption that would allow the team to continue playing in its current arena “for a temporary period of time, as long as the new arena gets built by a certain date.”
“I don’t see that happening with the NBA,” Rizzetta says. “Their priority is teams with NBA-quality arenas in European markets.”
Joining EuroLeague or the NBA’s European project would offer Napoli more than just greater competition. Both leagues would have a higher profile than Serie A—which is Italy’s top division and the league in which Napoli currently plays—meaning teams would gain access to larger media and sponsorship deals, and player salaries would likely increase. In Serie A1, player salaries average between $180,000 and $350,000 and can rise as high as $2 million. EuroLeague salaries can reach more than $5 million.
Since buying Napoli last year, Rizzetta has made moves aimed at turning Napoli into a global basketball brand and building his portfolio of sports assets. In May, Napoli hired James Laughlin, a former Pelicans and Warriors executive, to serve as general manager of Underdog Global Partners, which launched in September. That company houses his sports assets, including Campobasso, which plays in Italy’s third-highest division of soccer; Donna Roma, an Italian women’s soccer team that plays in the country’s second-highest level; and CPL Quebec, an expansion men’s soccer team that will play in the Canadian Premier League.
Napoli previously competed in EuroLeague and now plays in Serie A. The club is currently participating in the Italian Basketball Cup, which it won in 2023–24.
Rizzetta believes Naples has been overlooked as a basketball market, pointing to the city’s international airports and tourism appeal, plus the fact that it was named the European Capital of Sport for 2026 and will host the America’s Cup, a competitive sailing competition, in 2027.
“Naples sells itself,” he tells FOS.
The Broader Context
Rizzetta’s push comes amid lingering uncertainty with regard to both EuroLeague and the NBA’s planned European project, which could launch as soon as next year. Of 13 permanent EuroLeague teams, three chose not to accept the 10-year extension offered by EuroLeague: Real Madrid, ASVEL Basket, and Fenerbahçe Istanbul. Although the Jan. 15 deadline has passed, those teams could still negotiate long-term extensions to stay with EuroLeague.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said last week that Real Madrid is one of the teams the NBA has held preliminary talks with, although the team’s three largest supporter groups issued a joint statement saying the team should stay in EuroLeague. ASVEL, which is owned by Spurs legend Tony Parker, is widely viewed as a team that will likely join the NBA’s project in Europe.
The NBA hosted about 250 people in London last week to talk about its project, according to The Athletic, which reported that NBA legend Pau Gasol could have a “top role” in the endeavor. That report said representatives from Italy’s Olimpia Milano, Greece’s Panathinaikos, Germany’s Bayern Munich, and more have expressed interest. Meanwhile, well-known organizations that don’t have pro basketball teams, like Manchester City and AC Milan, are also reportedly weighing whether to form teams that could join the NBA’s league. Representatives for Qatar Sports Investments and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund were also reportedly in attendance.
