Stephen Pagliuca: The failed basketball freshman who became a big shot in sports management
Alamy | Donnie Wahlberg and Stephen Pagliuca
Atalanta become the ninth Serie A club to come under foreign ownership as Boston Celtics co-owner Stephen Pagliuca buys a majority stake in La Dea.
The Bergamo outfit are one of the best run clubs in European football and adhere to Pagliuca’s three-pronged approach to running a club: smart management, community ethos, creating a great fan experience.
Why it matters: US ownership of Italian clubs is becoming commonplace, but few have yet seen success on or off the pitch.
The perspective: Despite the club’s virtues, Atalanta’s reported €500 million valuation seems huge given the size of its audience and Italian football’s current challenges.
24 February 2022 - 7:31 PM
One Autumn day in the early-1970s, Stephen Pagliuca – who has just become co-chairman of Atalanta, having acquired a majority stake in the Serie A club this week – had a moment of realisation.
The teenager had recently moved from his family home in New Jersey to study at Duke in North Carolina and had hopes of a sporting career.
Pagliuca comes from modest origins: he is a third generation immigrant to the US
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