U.S. Investor Buys Italian Hoops Team Amid Euro Sports Surge

Matt Rizzetta of investment firm North Sixth Group is leading a group that will buy a majority stake in Italian basketball team Napoli Basketball, Front Office Sports has learned, a move that comes as U.S. and other money has been pouring into European basketball.

The deal is expected to close “imminently,” a source familiar with the situation tells FOS. The new ownership group will take effect at the end of the current season, which ends next month. Financial details were not available.

Rizzetta confirmed to FOS the two sides are in negotiations. 

Rizzetta, who graduated from Iona University in 2005, is making the investment alongside other prominent Iona graduates, including veteran fintech executive Dan Doyle, now a strategic advisor at Gold SN, which provides advice to entrepreneurs across a variety of industries, including sports.

Napoli, which used to play in the Euroleague and are now in Italy’s top league, Serie A1, started its current season 0-11 but are 8-6 in their last 14 games and are hoping to stave off relegation. They currently sit in 13th place, ahead of three teams with worse records. Typically, the worst team in the league gets relegated to a lower league. 

It has rostered former NBA players in the past, including Alex English, Larry O’Bannon and most recently Kevin Pangos, a former Gonzaga point guard who played in 24 games for the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2021-22 season. Pangos is currently with Napoli.

Other teams in major European cities with foreign owners include Paris Basketball, co-owned by former Minnesota Timberwolves president of basketball operations David Kahn, AS Monaco Basket, which is owned by Russian businessman and commodity trader Alexey Fedorychev, and Pallacanestro Trieste, which includes former Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Connor Barin among its ownership.

The transaction also comes as the NBA eyes expansion into Europe. Commissioner Adam Silver said late last month that the league is exploring a potential league in Europe with the  International Basketball Federation (FIBA) as partners. 

Rizzetta, an Italian-American businessman, is founder and chairman of North Sixth Group, a family office that targets investments in marketing, media and sports, and entertainment. Rizzetta’s other sports team investments include London-based Dagenham & Redbridge Football Club, which plays in England’s National League, Brooklyn Football Club, which plays in pro women’s soccer league the USL Super League, and Campobasso Football Club, an Italian club that currently plays in Serie C, the country’s third tier. Hollywood power couple Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos are minority investors in Campobasso. His ownership in those teams is through an entity called Club Underdog.