23 Oct SPAZIO NBA and the story of Daniele Astarita
I had the pleasure of asking a couple of questions to Daniele Astarita, one of the administrators of SPAZIO NBA, the largest italian community about basketball on Facebook. He related his passion for basketball, the success of SPAZIO NBA and the launch of The Shot in 2019 besides other oddities.
1) Hi Daniele, how have you become passionate about basketball?
Hi Chiara, thanks for the chat. I have become passionate about basketball pretty late, in the second year of high school. Since childhood, I have always watched and played football, then a friend passionate about basketball, showed me the highlights of Kobe Bryant on YouTube. Since then I have started watching as many NBA videos as possible and I have kept informed on history, players and everything else. It has been a vicious cycle.
2) Let’s talk about SPAZIO NBA, the largest Italian group about basketball on Facebook. When has it launched?
Salvatore Varriale created the group in 2011. At that time, on Facebook, there wasn’t much basketball and all communities, born in those years, help each other, trying to grow up together. Through the years, there have been several administrators before me (there was also a website, closed afterward). Me and a couple of friends, we became the administrators in 2015. We offered to manage the community because there wasn’t a real admin at that time and I cared about the group, since it has always helped me to learn and understand basketball.
3) Today SPAZIO NBA counts over 37000 members, a community that is costantly growing. If you had to recap the last years, what were the most iconic moments of your history?
There have been many, among others the picture of Harrison Barnes holding a sheet with the old logo of SPAZIO NBA, the events to watch the games and above all the gatherings of 2018 and 2019. The strong points of the group have always been meeting NBA fans and building friendships. Meeting in person the members of the group, through the years, has been one of the best things for us.
4) In September 2019, you launched the Shot a in-depth website about basketball. What are the strong points of the website?
Surely, the strong points are the quality of the articles, video contents for articles (for the reader, it is useful to better understand the analysis), the covers of the articles and a full coverage of the 30 NBA franchises.
5) What are the next goals?
Recently, we have launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to realize the first release of the official merchandising of The Shot. For the rest, I can’t say anything else, but before the end of the year there will be very important news. Get ready!
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