Intesa Sanpaolo is an official partner of the NBA in Italy

The fellowship between the Group and NBA testifies the strong will to make of all sport a means of sharing and improving the quality of life for the whole of society, starting from a dialogue with the community.

A look at the future and the collective well-being are both perfectly expressed also in the renovation of the basketball court in Piazza d'Armi, accomplished by Intesa Sanpaolo in November 2021.

The city playground - modernized with the direct involvement of the National Basketball Association (NBA) - will continue to represent a new sports and cultural center, providing a meeting, dialogue, and game point for the next generations of Turin fans.

The inauguration ceremony, which took place in the presence of Carlotta Salerno, Councilor of the City of Turin for Education, Youth Policies, Suburbs, and urban regeneration projects; Andrea Lecce, Head of Sales & Marketing for Individuals and Retail Companies at Intesa Sanpaolo; and Nick Cowell, NBA EME Director, Global Partnerships, offered a demonstration of the impact that such an avant-garde structure could have on the city landscape, turning, in fact, into a real celebration of sport.

The journey of the NBA, the most famous professional league in the world, began in New York, in the years right after WWII. The great driving force of basketball immediately became an important tool of social and cultural integration, thus anticipating the times of the other major American sports leagues.
In fact, unlike what happened, for example, in the college leagues, from the very first years, there were numerous African-American and foreign players on the rosters of the teams. This immediately gave rise to an important integration movement and highlighted the cosmopolitan and forward-thinking nature of the whole Association.

Since its founding, the NBA has become a universal symbol of sport and participation, reaching millions of spectators and fans in every corner of the planet. At the tip of the iceberg of this ever-growing global interest, there was what happened on the court, which made the previous decades engaging and full of stories to narrate, redefining the outlines of modernity.
The first big names, capable of catalysing media attention and making basketball a popular phenomenon inside and outside the US, were the Minneapolis Lakers and the Boston Celtics. The latter, in particular, with the strength of a roster that became legendary, established a real sports dynasty, which won eleven titles in thirteen seasons, and which gave planetary fame to the famous Leprechaun that stands out in the team's logo. The figure celebrates the Irish and working-class soul of the city of Boston, always a preferred destination for migrants on the other side of the Channel, and represents yet another example of a League attentive to local and cultural particularities.

Every decade, therefore, it has told unique challenges, full of sporting and human epics, showing a glimpse of the American society and its sports habits.

An aura of greatness and excellence for an Association, that for almost 75 years has been constantly expanding its geographical and cultural boundaries, promoting, through the events on the court, the highest values of inclusiveness and solidarity.

To date, the NBA has consolidated its international positioning, with games and entertainment programs broadcast in 215 different countries and translated into more than 50 languages. This growth was achieved both from a media point of view and a sporting point of view, considering that at the start of the current season there were 41 different nationalities represented on the rosters of the teams, with the record number of 107 international players.

Yet, its attention to the main social issues and the great investments it makes all over the world for the development of education, family, and health, through the work of NBA Cares are the factors that make the Association a model.
Integration and vision of the future, for an organization that has become synonymous with both spectacle and progress, as the different souls that make up the League tell. Alongside the iconic NBA logo, in fact, in addition to the National Basketball Association, there is also the Women's League, called WNBA, the development League, called the G League, and the NBA 2K League, which promotes E-Sports. The NBA and the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) also jointly operate the Basketball Africa League (BAL).

A complex and fascinating universe, with which Intesa Sanpaolo is proud to collaborate, and that promotes universal and forward-thinking values, which perfectly reflect the Group's mission.