April 24, 2024: the women’s Virtus begins the playoffs. Third at the end of the championship, they challenge Ragusa, sixth, who then emerge victorious 75-77 from the field.
To be clear, it is not just any match, but it is the beginning of a journey that leads to the title of Italian Champions.
Let’s put everything into context: the capacity of the Segafredo Arena has almost 10 thousand seatsAlways sold out in men’s V Euroleague matches.
We don’t like comparisons, but it is a starting point for understanding our reasoning.
Well, on Wednesday evening those present were only a few real enthusiasts and a small number of family members, numbers that covered only one of the parterres of the immense Bolognese exhibition facility.
A couple of calculations on Basket city
Nothing strange, you might say. Women’s basketball does little audience, as certified by the average turnout of the Juventus public at the matches, far from the lush flow of crowds that usually populate the European and non-European evenings of the men’s first team with the V on their chest. Well, great, but the question is: why would something like that NOT seem strange?
Bologna is Basketball City. There is no inhabitant, young or adult, man or woman, who has never heard of Virtus or Fortitudo. That he doesn’t know the colors of these two teams, that he doesn’t know at least one player’s name on one side and on the other. This is Basketball City.
Thinking about it, to tell the truth, Bologna cannot be defined like this. Not with these assumptions. Wednesday: a few hours until the match, many tickets still widely available on the platform that sells them. I received a response, when I proposed to come and watch the match with me, which was the following: «I don’t want to spend 5 euros to watch women’s basketball».
Curious answer, if you think about it carefully. A basketball fan from Bologna (and I underline “fan”) is expected to see one match a year: average cost, 25-30 euros. Let’s not talk about the season ticket holders (always very many, as Bologna teaches) who invest hundreds of euros a year to follow their favorites at home and away. In short, without wanting to talk about basketball lovers, whatever their faith, but an average fan will spend a hundred euros a year to be able to watch good basketball.
A fundamental problem
Exactly, “good basketball”. Evidently, the city of Bolognawhich boasts of having seen the excellence of men’s and European basketball pass through its floors (an absolutely true statement), he is unable to have a sufficiently refined palate to appreciate what the pink side of the ball with the segments can offer. Of course, anyone who wants to start a controversy could say “And what about the 5337 at Paladozza last year“? The real problem is that he made the news precisely that fact. That an almost full house arrived in the final match of a season to remember for the Bianconere (for those who don’t remember, Virtus won the championship in the ’22-’23 season). A match that the black Vu lost against the future champion Schio, a match for which they would have had to go to war to be able to get a ticket. Or better, in a basketball-loving city like Bologna, but where it made the news because that unknown female basketball player, finally or strangely, had some fans.
This isn’t the case for everyone. There are settings in Italy that have very different frameworks: first Schio, which bases the roots of its basketball culture on a thriving women’s sector. The problem seems to be in Bologna. There is no shortage of material: Virtus is one of the best equipped teams in the championship, where they play absolute stars of international fame such as Cecilia Zandalasinistable elements in the national team and players of an established and renowned European caliber. In short, the ingredients are all there (a solid team, a coach of great fame, a wonderful arena), only the last element is missing, as precious as salt: the support..
A limit that is around basketball
Personally, I have always explained all this to myself with two words: ignorance and prejudice, but perhaps one is enough to contain the other. Speaking with people who are not accustomed to the sector, I have often heard phrases that can be summarized as follows: “Men’s basketball is something else“.
I would like to give an example. The historic 3-pointer at the All Star Game between Steph Curry and Sabrina Ioanescu. After the challenge, the WNBA star said: “If you know how to shoot, you just know how to shoot. It doesn’t matter whether you are a man or a woman, but what matters is the heart you put into becoming the best version of yourself“. The concept is all here. It is not fair to a priori blame a women’s sport for being different, even more so when it boasts profound knowledge in the field. Those who know basketball, appreciate it, love every technical and physical gesture, know and will always be able to understand the substantial absence of differences in terms of “basketball” expressed by the hands and legs of the black Vu.
Well, you can say you’ve never come to see a Virtus match, yes. There must always be a “baptism”, sooner or later. There is no doubt that the unknown is frightening, especially in a society where we base our foundations on fear of what comes out of our own. confort-zone. The mistake is not testing yourself if you really can’t handle potentially seeing 10 girls leaping towards a basket for 40′. Hand, let it never, ever be said that female Virtus deserves less attention than male Virtus. Because that would be absurd.
One final reflection
I will conclude with an anecdote: on 10 July Rari Nantes Bologna won promotion to Serie A1 in a splendid Sterlino swimming pool. A historic moment for water polo in Bologna (the Serie A had been missing for 5 years now) and all our friends and relatives were there, aware of the year of hard work we had been through, cheering for us: yes, I too was among those 15 who wrote a small page in the history of Bolognese sport. There was no one who came, who wasn’t closely related to us, to see that game. Each of us, during that challenge, would have cried with joy at the thought that even just one more person had come to see us “because we were strong”.
We rose to Serie A, between our tears of pride and the (almost) general indifference of the world not close to us. But water polo is an obscure world to most, with a fame not comparable to that of basketball in Bologna. I think I can say, however, that this feeling can be very close to what Segafredo has felt all this year: the awareness of being a great team, but almost no one ready to applaud your successes after so many sacrifices. Not because you don’t deserve it, but because no one knows.
Ecco, the Bologna of basketball is lucky enough to be a world. A world that loves basketball, lives it, touches it first-hand every day. By cornering a wonderful team like the women’s Virtus, Bologna loses a huge and crucially important part of its reputation as a cultivator of the ball. If it is and will be 5 euros that stops a person’s desire to go to the Segafredo Arena, we will never be able to talk about “Basket City”.
Continue reading the news of 1000 Cuori Rossoblu and follow our Facebook page
2024-04-29 17:22:12
#Basketball #City #womens #basketball #isnt #news
