"Hit me." (AP)
Some Nets news and notes from around the 'net:
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Barclays Center
AP
Three black owners of a luxury box suite at Barclays Center have filed a lawsuit against the arena for $4 million, claiming that they've been subject to racism from staff since purchasing the box, according to the New York Post.
Glen DeFreitas, Sean Scarborough, and Jermaine Pratt, of Ludwig's Pharmacy in Prospect Heights, purchased rights to the suite for three years at a cost of roughly $1 million this October.
The suit claims that the three are the only black luxury box owners at Barclays Center and "have been subject to adverse treatment because of their race."
From the Post:
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The New York Islanders will move to Brooklyn's Barclays Center following next season, which means a few structural changes for the arena. The above photo, which was tweeted and Instagrammed out by Barclays Center, shows how the layout will look for a hockey rink.
As you can probably tell, it's a little off. Barclays Center was not built for hockey, it was built for basketball; the rink (much larger than an NBA court) is off-center in the arena, so much so that there are no seats behind the net stage left. The scoreboard is also off-center as a result.
The arena will fit 14,500 fans for hockey games, making it the smallest arena in terms of attendance in the NHL.
Still: beats Nassau!
Mikhail Prokhorov (AP)
Russian billionaire playboy oligarch/Brooklyn Nets owner/heli-skiier/rapper/politician Mikhail Prokhorov received permission from the NBA to relocate the Nets ownership vehicle to Russia, a move that will allow him to comply with a new Russian law that bans some Russian officials from owning assets abroad. Prokhorov ran for Russian President while owner of the Nets in 2012 -- prior to the new laws regarding foreign assets -- losing to current Russian President Vladimir Putin by a wide margin.
"I received permission from the NBA to transfer the company that owns the Brooklyn Nets to a Russian company," Prokhorov said at the Thursday press conference. The Nets owner also said he received permission to move the ownership structure of Barclays Center to Russia. Neither move should have a significant impact on the operations of the Nets or arena.
Even with the permission, Prokhorov will not run for Mayor of Moscow as previously planned. At a June 13th press conference -- the same day the Nets announced Jason Kidd would be their new head coach -- Prokhorov said his Civil Platform party "will not participate in the procedure of prolonging the current mayor's license."
Prokhorov had planned to run for mayor in Fall of 2015, when current mayor Serei Sobyanin's term runs out. But Sobyanin announced last week that he is stepping down, triggering a special September election that Sobyanin will run in himself. The move is seen as a ploy by Sobyanin to extend his time in office by limiting his opponents' chance to campaign before the elections.
Read More: Transitions Online - - Prokhorov to Sit Out Moscow Mayoral Race
Read More: The Wall Street Journal, Paul Sonne - - The Nets Are About To 'Move' To Russia
How did the first year of transit around Barclays Center go? Depends who you ask. (AP)
Critics of the Barclays Center construction counted "Carmageddon in Brooklyn" among their considerable list of project grievances. The fear was that a sizeable amount of the 15,000+ arena attendees would drive to the game, creating parking and traffic problems for an already busy area.
But two-thirds of Nets fans used mass transit or walked to Barclays Center in the Nets' inaugural season in Brooklyn, a significantly higher rate than originally projected, according to a new report from Sam Schwartz Engineering.... MORE →
by MrNykes via Instagram
Judging from the number of Nets hats one sees in the streets of Kings County, it sure seems that the Brooklyn Nets have captured the imagination of Brooklyn.
But there’s some statistical evidence that the Nets are not yet fully a Brooklyn team.
First, just 16.7 percent of those who watched the Nets on YES Network are from Brooklyn, according to information provided The Brooklyn Game by Scarborough Research. By contrast, 30.7 percent were from New Jersey, and 46 percent came from New York City as a whole. (Chart below)
Second, The Brooklyn Game's own web traffic follows a roughly similar pattern. Our recent user survey indicated that 26 percent or our readers come from Brooklyn vs. 40 percent from New Jersey. Our site traffic is in the same zone, and, according to Tweetsmap.com, 30.8 percent of @TheBKGame followers come from New York City. In the state breakdown, 35 percent come from New York State compared to 14.7 in New Jersey.
The Nets declined to provide numbers on the geographic distribution of ticket buyers.
But the available statistics all indicate that the majority of active Brooklyn Nets fans are not from Brooklyn.
In a way, it's not surprising. If you were an ultra-serious basketball fan living in Brooklyn for the last few decades, you rooted for the Knicks, you didn’t sit out the season in the hope that some day Brooklyn would have a team. So the Nets started off with a problem: the Brooklynites who cared most about basketball already had other loyalties. Then, unfortunately for the Nets, the Knicks chose this year to get good again, making it less likely that grumpy, Dolan-hating Knicks fans would jump ship to the new team. Meanwhile, it's to be expected that many New Jerseyans who had stuck with the Nets during the lean years would stay with the new-improved version.
Perhaps we should just rejoice that the Brooklyn/Jersey Nets are a "national team" – what with the cool logo and the Jay-Z ownership.
On the other hand, despite the self-evident awesomeness of Nets fans, there are at least two signs that the situation is less than ideal. The Emory Sports Marketing Analytics study ranked the Nets dead last in fan involvement. It may not feel that way to those chanting Brooooook-lyn in the middle of Barclays -- or to the many who creatively "Rep Your Nets" each week -- but the folks at Emory argue that the most objective way to compare across cities is to look at the dollars spent relative what would be projected based on the population and other factors.
And while there's no precise way of knowing how fan intensity might affect a team, it is worth noting that the Nets had one of the worst home court advantage differentials in the league. As Devin wrote earlier, "Per 100 possessions, Brooklyn is only 1.7 points better at home than on the road, a margin that's only better than one team -- the 20-62 Orlando Magic, the team with the league's worst overall record."
Even if the diffuseness of the Nets fan base doesn't relate to either "brand equity" or the home court performance, it can't be a good thing in the long run that Brooklyn -- a city of 2.5 million people -- isn't supplying the bulk the Brooklyn Nets' fans.
Are there things the Nets could do to better penetrate the borough?
The Nets already conduct a variety of community events around the borough, especially with young people. And Barclays has made a point of using local Brooklyn food.
Personally, I think it would help if even a Net or two lived in Brooklyn, as several of the Brooklyn Dodgers did.
And it would be nice if the Forest City Ratner folks keep their promises about the development. Otherwise, some portion of Brooklyn will feel like rooting for the Nets is an endorsement of dishonest business practices.
[Note to Brooklyn readers: What else should the Nets do?]
This is just the first year in Brooklyn. Perhaps its not shocking that the Nets don't have Dodgers-like penetration. But the team should at least realize that the whole borough is not going hard for the Nets just yet.
Source, Scarborough Research, NY DMA (2013, Release 1)
Barclays Center (AP)
In what was "quite a journey" according to Brooklyn Nets CEO Brett Yormark, Brooklyn's Barclays Center won the Sports Business Award's Sports Facility of the Year in its inaugural season. According to Yormark, Barclays Center has hosted 157 events since Jay-Z opened the arena in September with eight shows in nine nights, attracting 1.7 million patrons in that time.
No confirmation if the award was won solely due to the magical energy radiating from the oculus.
Video of the Yormark interview from Sports Business Daily below.
