Tullio Marino, Manager on a TopLeague Basketball Team

AFTER WORKING AT OLIMPIA MILANO AND INTER, HE CAME TO THE MANAGEMENT STAFF FOR THE TEAM IN HIS HOMETOWN, ENEL BASKET BRINDISI, WHERE HE HAS BEEN WORKING SINCE 1 AUGUST

At just 28, Tullio Marino is manager of Enel Basket Brindisi (Serie A1), where he has held the position since August 1st, coming full circle. Returning to his hometown in a leading role at one of the most important local sporting organizations was the objective and he achieved it in record time. During his Bachelor in business economics, a Master of Science in management and a diploma from the Sport Business Academy (today Pems SDA Bocconi), all at Bocconi, Marino was always focused on sports as his professional career: “I wanted to be a sports journalist,” he says, “but to follow family tradition, I enrolled in an economics program, without losing sight of my original objective.” He has always kept his interests in mind, and both his final papers focused on sports: “The final paper for the Bachelor was on organizing large events, while my Master of Science thesis was on the impact that local sports organizations have on the surrounding territory. But during my studies, during the last year of the Master of Science when I studied abroad in Madrid, I did an internship at Piaggio Spain,” he says. “I worked on promoting Superbike sports events.”

Attending the Sport Business Academy, established through a collaboration between SDA Bocconi and RCS Sport, gave Tullio the chance to develop many contacts that would be useful as his career progressed. “My first real job was with RCS Sport, where I was in charge of advertising production for events related to running, golf and basketball, my true passion.” In September 2012, he made a big change: Tullio Marino started working for Giorgio Armani’s Olimpia Milano, initially working in ticketing, merchandising and marketing and then becoming Ticketing Manager of the club after a few months. “We achieved big objectives, continuously increasing the number of season passes and attendees to games in general,” he says, “kicking off a new boom for basketball in Milan after a few sluggish years. It was a great experience, lasting 2 years, a wide-ranging job that was part strategy but also operational. And it paid off in 2014, with the 26th championship win.”

Though fulfilling, his time at Olimpia ended in 2014 when Tullio decided to work at an even larger organization: Inter. “I became a part of the team that works on stadium revenues. My job was to develop the ticketing network, with an office right in San Siro. A lot was changing with the Nerazzurri at the time, with the gradual change from an Italian organization with Massimo Moratti to a more international one with Eric Thohir. There were a lot of people there, each with a specific task. The experience allowed me grow a lot, but I wanted to return to a more operative, on-the-field role.”

A return to his hometown was a natural next step after a series of experiences at some of the largest sporting organizations in Italy. “Brindisi is a small organization when you compare it to Milan and two giants like Inter and Olimpia,” he says, “but here basketball is a religion, you breathe basketball and talk about basketball. Working for this team means taking on a great responsibility.” The role of manager means having a broader set of tasks compared to his previous positions, including “on the court” tasks. Tullio is in no rush: “I won’t being working on technical issues, we have an excellent general manager for that. I won’t choose players personally, I don’t want to meddle on the court. But I’m very happy to be home and to do my job.”

 

by Davide Ripamonti
Translated by Jenna Walker