Sebastiani Rieti

Rieti has lost its basketball club to bankruptcy twice and to Naples once, and each time the name has come back. The most recent change was in May 2025, when Real Sebastiani Rieti, refounded in 2020, became RSR Sebastiani Rieti. Locally the team is "Sebba", and it plays in Serie A2.

The peak came early. In 1980 the club won the Korać Cup, beating Cibona Zagreb in the final, a year after losing the 1979 final. The squads of that period brought American players to the city, among them Willie Sojourner, whose name the arena now carries, and Joe "Jellybean" Bryant, father of Kobe Bryant. Roberto Brunamonti, a Rieti player of the same era, is also on the club's list of notable names.

The decline was financial. The club went bankrupt in 1997 and restarted as Virtus Rieti the following year. From 2003 it was Nuova A.M.G. Sebastiani, and it won the Coppa Italia LNP in 2004. In 2007 it took the Legadue title and the Legadue Coppa Italia in the same season. In 2010 the franchise left for Naples as Nuova Basket Napoli. Two years later a new Sebastiani Basket Club Rieti was set up in the city, and it too went under.

The arena, PalaSojourner, was formerly the Palaloniano and the Palazzo dello Sport. Safety works between 2020 and 2023 cut its capacity from 3,550 to 2,964. Roberto Pietropaoli is owner and president, and Andrea Fabrizi is head coach. The old Pesaro rivalry, which Domenico Zampolini called the "derby del cuore", sits alongside the regional derby with Roma.

The name comes from three local brothers, Angelo, Mario and Gino Sebastiani, who were sportsmen and were killed by the German army in 1944. Luigi Padronetti founded the club on 30 October that year to remember them.