Farewell to Rino Tommasi: his relationship with Milan
The city was his work base for a long time: he was at the Gazzetta dello Sport, he directed the sports services of Canale 5 called by Silvio Berlusconi and together with Clerici between Tele + and Sky he elevated tennis commentaries to an art. But in Milan he also “wrested” the scepter in the organization of boxing matches, to the advantage of Rome
Two images by Rino Tommasi
Milan, 8 January 2024 – The world of sport and that of sports journalism say Farewell to Rino Tommasi, singer and statistician of disciplines such as tennis and boxing, without forgetting his passion for football (he was a declared fan of Hellas Verona). He can also claim the merit of having been among the pioneers, at least on a journalistic level, of the introduction of American sports into the collective imagination of the Italian people.
Experiences in Milan
Born and died in Verona, raised in the Marche region, in San Benedetto del Tronto, where the family had moved due to the work commitments of his father Virgilio, already an Italian record holder in the long jump, Tommasi in his very long professional career had a close relationship with Milan, at various times its work base.
In 1965 it is to the Gazzetta dello Sport, the sports daily newspaper based in Milan, a newspaper for which he would write for forty years, a period in which he would also lend his pen and voice to numerous other newspapers, magazines and audio-video media. In 1981, as part of the acquisition campaign orchestrated by Silvio Berlusconi for his nascent private TV hub, Tommasi is called to direct the sports services of Canale 5.
The future president of Milan and prime minister wants the best elements on the market and, as a great expert in the medium, he has perfectly understood that Rino is among the journalists best suited to the "leap" from traditional media to private TV, with all that this entails in terms of changes in style, register and even editorial choices.
For Canale 5 (and later Italia 1) he created the rotogravure Great boxing. In 1991, again for Fininvest channels, he interviewed the heavyweight champion exclusively Mike Tyson. In the meantime, he began his career at Tele +, the pay TV where he refined his relationship with the Larian – and former signature of Il Giorno – Gianni Clerici, died three years ago in Bellagio.
The “snatch” of great boxing
Professionally linked to Milan with a double thread, Rino Tommasi – with an almost entrepreneurial flair, demonstrating how it would have been too narrow for him to pigeonhole him exclusively as a journalist – was also the protagonist of an operation that took away from the Lombard metropolis the primacy in the organization of large meetings boxing, a real business at the time, moving – live, on the radio and then on TV – huge numbers of spectators.
Since 1959, when he was “only” 25 years old, an age that made him the youngest organizer of meetings in the world, until 1970, in fact, Tommasi was also impresario in the world of boxing, his chosen discipline together with tennis. He chose the sports palace of Rome, at the time very little frequented by practitioners of the noble art. In short, without resorting to names of absolute appeal, he managed to obtain a series of sold-out shows, thus "snatching" from Milan the scepter of the capital of Italian boxing.
Always in Rome, in collaboration with the Sis of Milan, from the mid-60s he will also succeed in bringing to the shadow of the Campidoglio some world title fights. Among these, in 1965, the Mazzinghi-Benvenuti rematch (junior middleweight), the match between the Thai Kingpetch and the Sardinian Burruni (flyweight) and the clash between the Venezuelan Hernandez and the Italian Sandro Lopopolo (junior welterweight).