09 Oct NBAPassion: basketball and passion since 2013
1) Hi Marco, when is your passion for basketball born?
Hi Chiara, the passion for basketball has been passed down to me since childhood, both because my parents enrolled me to minibasketball, instead of football, as many kids and I loved to watch the video tapes of Nba players. From that moment on, I kept training and playing, before my knees didn’t allow me to carry on. From that time, I have kept on watching basketball combining with the passion for writing and thus NBAPassion was born a couple of years ago.
2) When did you launch the project of NBAPassion?
The project is born under the name of Dunk NBA, it was just a blog, one of the sports blogs launched in the 2010s. Me and Virginia, we dealt with it. The first months were really hard, because I arranged studies, writings and games on TV. Then gradually even more people followed the blog and this gave us the strength to turn into a website. Thus NBAPassion is born, the website as you see today, has undergone several “graphic mutations” and will take even more.
3) What moments have marked out your story?
There aren’t real moments that have marked our story, I would say that year after year we have changed something, little things that have led us to the current organization. We were two guys passionate about basketball and writing and we have become twenty people who write on NBAPassion. We have grown even more and we have built small editorial staff managed by editors-in-chief, my “trustworthy ones”, let’s call them like this. Stefano Belli and Raffaele Camerini, for YouTube, Daniele Maggio for in-depth analysis, Michele Gibin for news and transactions. Tommaso Ranieri, Lorenzo Brancati and Francesco Catalano for social media, Rami Aatia, Kevin Martorano, Giacomo Greco and Giovanni Oriolo for community management.
4) How did you entertain your community during the suspension of the Nba season?
During the lockdown we have dealt with difficulties not as the beginning, as after the early moments. As from the news on a possible return, we have dealt with dead calm from the end of April to May. In that moment, we published historic images, videos and stories from the past, both on the website and on the online community to increase the users’ engangement and keep it alive.
I must say that we succeeded well, seeing as we took advantage of all guys’ presence, unable to come out because of the virus.
5) What are your next goals?
As goals in short order, we are working to open a small shop section on the website after the success of t-shirts and sweatshirts (above all the one of Caruso) and the magazine in PDF (we are renewing) released during the lockdown. We have launched a section on Italian basketball led by Kevin, by the end of the year we will see, if it will bear fruit (engagement and views on the website). Then there is always our long-cherished dream, we have worked on since a year with Kevin: launching a Tv show or a web TV about Italian basketball and NBA. It is a long-term project but one day we hope to be able to realize it with targeted investment.
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