Dirk Nowitzki joins bid to move Italian club to Rome
Donnie Nelson and Dirk Nowitzki have backed a bid to turn Vanoli Basket Cremona’s rights into a Rome club, a move tied to NBA Europe’s next steps.
A group led by former Dallas Mavericks general manager Donnie Nelson, with Dirk Nowitzki also involved, has moved to use Vanoli Basket Cremona’s Serie A sporting rights to create a new club in Rome. The target is a 2026-27 launch in Italy’s top division, a first step in a much larger play for a city that investors believe could anchor a future continental league.
The Federazione Italiana Pallacanestro conditionally approved the relocation process in May 2026 after reviewing the documentation from Guerino Vanoli Basket Srl and finding the request meritorious, subject to final obligations and deadlines. The federation later said the process to transfer Vanoli Basket’s seat from Cremona to Rome had been initiated, clearing the way for the club’s licensing path to continue for the 2026-27 Serie A season.
Rome’s appeal is obvious. The capital has not had a top-tier basketball club since Virtus Roma withdrew in 2020 because of financial problems, leaving a major market untouched. The arena most often associated with the project is PalaEur, and the move would restore elite men’s basketball to a city with far greater population, sponsorship reach and international visibility than many of Italy’s existing basketball centers.
The broader prize is NBA Europe. Adam Silver has said talks with FIBA and other partners remain in the early stages and could take a couple more years to materialize, while reports have described a 12-team competition with a launch around the 2027-28 season. Rome has been identified as one of the target cities, which makes the Italian relocation more than a domestic maneuver. It is a bid to plant a flag before a new basketball map is drawn.
That sequence, an Italian club first, a possible NBA-backed league later, shows how basketball capital is being assembled across borders. Former Mavericks figures are not just buying into European sport; they are positioning a city, a venue and a license for a future in which top-tier clubs may be judged as much by market size and geopolitical reach as by their record on the floor.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
Did this article answer your question?
