Interested in owning a pro basketball team? A group of Santa Clara alumni suggest heading east, and brushing up on your Italian.

When you think of the biggest sports in Europe, basketball likely isn’t topping your list. Perhaps it should. 

Take Italy, where basketball is now the second most popular sport behind soccer. It’s home to the Lega Basket Serie A, considered one of the most competitive professional leagues in all of Europe. Serie A has  produced several NBA players; see: Danilo Gallinari, Marco Belinelli, and Simone Fontecchio. And it’s become a bona fide destination for basketball fans to attend live games.

In Trieste, an old port city in the far northeastern corner of the country along the Adriatic Sea near the Slovenia border, basketball’s been big for a long time. The game has had a presence in Trieste since the 1930s and exploded in popularity following World War II when the city was placed under a joint U.S.-British military administration and the protection of the United Nations.

In 1985, a 22-year-old Michael Jordan shattered the backboard during an exhibition game in Trieste, the only Italian stop on Nike’s global promotional tour. The moment inspired one of Nike’s more popular Air Jordan shoes, the “Shattered Backboard.”

Today, a group of Santa Clara University alumni have taken Trieste’s and Italy’s love of the game to heart through an ownership opportunity that may have otherwise eluded them in the U.S. And their investments are paving the way for even more opportunities for more basketball-loving Broncos.

Pallacenestro is the Italian word for basketball

It started with Paul Matiasic ’99. The San Francisco-based attorney and entrepreneur loves basketball and was interested in owning a pro team in Italy, where he has ancestral roots. The stars aligned with the opportunity to become controlling owner of Cotogna Sports Group (CSG), an investment group founded by a group of executive MBA students from the Wharton School of Business that bought Trieste’s professional basketball team, Pallacenestro Trieste, in 2023. 

Matiasic traces his maternal lineage to the region near Trieste and was excited to be very hands-on in the development of the team, which had just re-entered top-level play in Serie A. “I had several opportunities to buy ownership stakes in other teams in Italy,” Matiasic said in a statement, “but I chose Trieste for its economic and cultural vitality, and for my personal connection to the region. … I’m dedicated to leading the club to new heights.”

When Morgan Slain, director of Santa Clara University’s Bronco Ventures, heard about a Santa Clara alum purchasing an Italian basketball team, he saw a chance to involve even more Broncos. Bronco Ventures offers programs that support students and alumni interested in the start-up and entrepreneurship space. The Bronco Venture Fund was created to invest specifically in SCU-affiliated companies.

Slain knew several Santa Clara alumni who’d already participated in the Bronco Venture Fund were interested in investing in professional sports, but were scared off by the $4.66 billion price tag of the average NBA team. Italy offered an exciting and viable alternative. He decided to give Matiasic a call.

“The quality of play is very high, there are many U.S. players that feed into the system from college, there’s increasing value in media rights to the games,” says Slain. Plus, who wouldn’t want to travel to Italy to watch some high-level basketball? “It’s just a fun experience for investors.”

In early 2025, a group of seven Santa Clara alums purchased small stakes in Pallacanestro Trieste, making them minority owners. “All together, Santa Clara alumni now own the majority of the team,” Slain says. “Paul is the largest stakeholder and has decision making authority with the team. For example he can hire and fire the general manager, coach, and staff. He’s also involved in operational decisions like drafting players and salary negotiations. For the rest of us, we’re more passive investors.”  

But everyone is excited by what a Santa Clara-affiliated pro team could mean for the wider Bronco community. There’s something about doing it together as a big group of alumni, Slain says, all representing different graduation years, different majors, and career paths. “It’s brave and adventurous. And it’s reaffirming that we have such a strong network.”

Building the Bronco Team

San Francisco 49ers hall-of-famer Brent Jones ’85 had previously invested in the Bronco Venture Fund but Trieste is his first time investing in a specific opportunity. When he received the investment presentation earlier this year, Jones didn’t hesitate. “I called [Morgan] immediately and said, ‘I think I need to be in this deal,’” Jones says.

So what does a three-time Super Bowl champ care about an Italian basketball team based in a city most Americans aren’t familiar with? Jones says anyone who’s played or follows sports will understand how compelling it is to be part of a team. For him, that means both the Trieste team, as well as the team of Santa Clara alumni. “We know how it feels to root for your teammates and see how they build up their performance, and we get to see how it unfolds all from the inside,” he says. Plus, “I loved the idea of investing alongside other alumni and thought this would be really cool. … Once you’ve graduated from Santa Clara, that connection with other Broncos is always there.”

In October, several members of the alumni minority investment group traveled to Trieste to see their team in action. Amr Darwish MBA ’12 says Trieste’s game against rival team Apu Udine was “just electric.” “There was so much energy in the area—a cheering section and guys with their shirts off, drums and a band,” says Darwish, a tech company founder who serves as chair of SCU’s MBA Alumni Advisory Board. “This is a city that really appreciates its sports.” 

Darwish invested in Trieste at almost the same time he became a minority owner of Leeds United Football Club, an English Premier League soccer team. “It’s obvious I have an appetite for this,” Darwish says. “European sports have big growth opportunity—it’s an expanding market. If you told me to invest in, say, the Pittsburgh Steelers, they’re already established. Where’s the growth in that?”

Darwish is right. Since the 1992 Olympics when the Dream Team took Barcelona and the world by storm, basketball has become a global sport. Names like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird have been replaced by Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Luka Doncic. The league posted its highest number of European players (74) in 2017-2018 and seven of the last 10 MVP trophies were awarded to players born outside of the United States. All of this means good things for the sport and for the level of play in places like Spain, which is better than ever before. 

The global game hits home

Beyond the alumni ownership team, Pallacanestro Trieste also presents exciting opportunities for other members of the wider Santa Clara University community. 

For example, the men’s basketball team could benefit from Trieste’s affiliation with Santa Clara as basketball explodes in popularity across Europe. “It could create synergy between their league and us,” says SCU basketball Associate Head Coach Jason Ludwig.

While SCU has already been aggressive in recruiting players from outside the states, Ludwig sees alumni ownership of Trieste as increasing visibility of the University in Italy’s strong youth basketball development system. This would mean attracting very young players to start thinking about coming to the U.S. for college, and playing ball at Santa Clara specifically. 

“The game is exploding globally. Now that you have the NIL [Name, Image, Likeness] in U.S. college basketball, it’s become like a pro league,” Ludwig says. “Now they can come here and earn money and earn a college degree. There’s an influx of international players wanting to participate.”

On the flip side, Ludwig says SCU’s connection to Trieste could inspire more American student-athletes to play overseas after graduation. “It’s so hard to make it to the NBA,” he says. “We’ve had a couple players get drafted recently, but what I’m just as proud of is we’ve had a bunch of guys go overseas and make a great living.” Imagine it, he says: “You can continue your basketball career, get incredible cultural experiences, maybe learn a new language, and earn money.” 

 

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Indeed, several recent SCU grads are currently playing in Serie A, including Guglielmo “Willy” Caruso ’22 for Napoli Basket and Carlos Marshall Jr. M.A. ’24 for Dinamo Sassri. In December, former SCU point guard Carlos Stewart ’25, who played in all 34 games his senior year, signed with Pallacanestro Varese after being released by the German pro team Hamburg Towers.

Off the court

Outside the Leavey Center, news of the Trieste team investment is buzzing around the Leavey School of Business. 

Marketing Associate Professor Kumar Sarangee and Teaching Professor Charles Byers are considering ways to leverage SCU’s connection to the team for the master’s program in sports business, likely as a practicum option for grad students to get hands-on, real-world field experience.

Byers says, depending on the team’s needs, students could work on a range of initiatives, from expanding the U.S. fan base to data analytics to messaging development for a North American marketing launch. 

Sarangee says this would be a unique offering for master’s students. “It reflects an international focus that distances our program from every other M.S. sports business program in the country,” says Sarangee. “It also puts the students in the middle of an emerging trend—the enthusiasm of U.S. fans for international sports teams.”