Saratoga Native Spreads the Bocce Gospel

Michael Scialdone Sharkey broadcasts from the United States Bocce Federation National Championships at the Highwood Bocce Club in Highwood, Illinois in June 2023. Photo provided.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — From ancient Rome to Saratoga Springs, the sport of bocce has a long and storied history that is still being celebrated by local players such as Michael Scialdone Sharkey, whose passion for the sport has resulted in tens of millions of hits on social media platforms.

Sharkey’s family hailed from Vitulazio, Italy, a small town about 22 miles north of Naples, where they would play bocce in their vineyard every Sunday. When they came to America, the family started hosting tournaments in central New York and the Finger Lakes. Growing up in Saratoga Springs, Sharkey even had a bocce court in his backyard. Today, he is both a gold-medal-winning national tournament player, and the owner of the Bocce Broadcast Network (BBN), which livestreams games on YouTube.

“I just spent all my money on all this camera equipment and switchers and all this stuff that I had no idea how it worked at first,” Sharkey said. He lugged his gear to the Italian Community Center in Troy and recorded some league games that he then uploaded to YouTube. To Sharkey’s surprise, the videos quickly generated hundreds of views.

Encouraged, Sharkey began broadcasting tournaments from around the country, including the Las Vegas Bocce National Open Championship in Nevada, and the United States Bocce Federation National Championship in St. Louis, Missouri. 

“There’s this whole kind of underground tournament circuit that the sport operates on, and until recently, nobody really was aware of it, outside of the players and their families,” Sharkey said. 

The BBN made those tournaments accessible to a wider audience, allowing new generations of fans to become engrossed in the ancient sport. 

“I see the excitement in people when they see the sport for the first time,” Sharkey said. “A lot of people played growing up in the backyard or wherever, but when you see the next level, the professional level of this sport, people get excited about it.”

While the network broadcasts bocce to the world, Sharkey is also working to increase the sport’s popularity here at home. In January, Saratoga Springs approved plans to build a $13,000 bocce court in Veteran’s Memorial Park. Sharkey’s father, who has built many of his own courts, reached out to the city to offer his assistance.

“Saratoga has the money to do nice things, so we’re hoping they’ll build some nice courts out there and maybe in the future we can have some leagues there,” Sharkey said. “We can introduce people to the sport, but then also introduce them to this competitive style if they want to take it further.”

Last year, local high schools piloted a unified bocce program run by Special Olympics New York. The league provided an opportunity for students with limitations in adaptive areas to play bocce. The pilot program was a success, and in October 2023, the BBN broadcast the unified championship tournament live from the Italian American Community Center in Albany.

As the sport grows in popularity both nationally and locally, Sharkey noted that bocce has survived for generations thanks to the hard work of countless volunteers. “There’s just this real generational passion for the sport that I think is really unique,” Sharkey said. 

The BBN’s next broadcast will be the World Series of Bocce at the Toccolana Club in Rome, New York on July 18-21. The network is also scheduled to cover the ABC Open at the Palazzo di Bocce in Lake Orion, Michigan in September.