{"id":485304,"date":"2026-02-24T17:00:01","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T16:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=485304"},"modified":"2026-02-24T17:00:01","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T16:00:01","slug":"nba-in-rome-two-u-s-groups-in-a-head-to-head-race-trieste-and-cremona-licenses-in-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/nba-in-rome-two-u-s-groups-in-a-head-to-head-race-trieste-and-cremona-licenses-in-play\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA in Rome, two U.S. groups in a head-to-head race: Trieste and Cremona \u201clicenses\u201d in play"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"2001\" data-end=\"2369\">Rome has become the center of a race that goes beyond the court: two U.S.-backed groups are said to be working to bring an immediate <strong data-start=\"2134\" data-end=\"2145\">Serie A<\/strong> presence to the capital, with the longer-term goal tied to <strong data-start=\"2205\" data-end=\"2219\">NBA Europe<\/strong>. One group is led by <strong data-start=\"2241\" data-end=\"2258\">Donnie Nelson<\/strong>, the other by <strong data-start=\"2273\" data-end=\"2290\">Paul Matiasic<\/strong>, president of <strong data-start=\"2305\" data-end=\"2330\">Pallacanestro Trieste<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2371\" data-end=\"2843\">Nelson\u2019s project is described as involving institutional meetings at the <strong data-start=\"2444\" data-end=\"2463\">Capitoline Hill<\/strong> and inspections at <strong data-start=\"2483\" data-end=\"2490\">EUR<\/strong>, with the <strong data-start=\"2501\" data-end=\"2524\">Palazzo dello Sport<\/strong> considered as a transitional venue while the <strong data-start=\"2570\" data-end=\"2602\">Foro Italico tennis Centrale<\/strong> is developed into a future basketball arena around 2028. Matiasic, meanwhile, has reportedly presented his own dossier and toured <strong data-start=\"2733\" data-end=\"2748\">PalaTiziano<\/strong>, while also building a sporting network around the plan.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2845\" data-end=\"3216\">The decisive angle is the competition for a top-flight \u201clicense\u201d: Nelson is linked to talks involving <strong data-start=\"2947\" data-end=\"2967\">Vanoli Cremona\u2019s<\/strong> Serie A title, while Matiasic could theoretically relocate <strong data-start=\"3027\" data-end=\"3040\">Trieste\u2019s<\/strong>. The biggest obstacle remains financial, with a reported <strong data-start=\"3098\" data-end=\"3114\">$300 million<\/strong> entry fee to be paid over ten years for the new league concept.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1606\" data-end=\"1705\"><em data-start=\"1606\" data-end=\"1626\">Source: La Repubblica Roma<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Donnie Nelson and Paul Matiasic lead parallel bids with institutional meetings and arena visits across PalaEur and PalaTiziano<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":485303,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[399,259],"tags":[],"rumors":[],"typology":[],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-485304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","category-serie-a"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2026\/02\/NBA-a-Roma-Trieste-Cremona-Matiasic-Donnie-Nelson.png","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485304"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=485304"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=485304"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=485304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}