Nets' announced attendance up 23% over New Jersey, leading league, but gaps remain

From NetsDaily, 4/29/13, Brooklyn Nets attendance, up 23.1%, leads NBA in one-season gain:

Sports Business Journal reports that the Nets' 23.1 percent increase in attendance this season led the NBA, far outpacing the Houston Rockets, at 8.5 percent and the Pacers and Raptors, who were up 7.8 percent each.
The Nets finished 16th in attendance in their premier season in Brooklyn, averaging 17,187 or more than 96 percent of the Barclays Center's final basketball capacity of 17,773. The planned capacity was 18,000 but was reduced as more high-end sections were configured. The ranking was the Nets highest since 1997-98 when they finished 12th. In their last season in New Jersey, the Nets finished 30th and dead last.

Still, we should recognize that NBA attendance is measured in tickets sold/distributed, not gate count, and there were a good number of tickets available for the last Nets playoffs game. Wrote SBNation Chicago correspondent Zach Lee 4/30/13:

I looked on TiqIq (shout out!) for a ticket halfway through the day on Monday only to find that Nets fans were showing a significant lack of interest in an underperforming team on the brink of elimination. I rejoiced in my half-price seat to a Bulls playoff game, even as a familiar pang of fear arose somewhere from the recesses of my mind.

A good number of seats must be owned by people trying to make a buck, rather than diehard fans. If the Nets win Game 6 of their best-of-7 series tonight in Chicago, there will be a Game 7 in Brooklyn on Saturday, May 4.

Right now, StubHub has 5662 seats available for that game, though if the Nets make it to Game 7, the team will have momentum and generate much more interest.

The change from New Jersey

A few comments on the NetsDaily post:

here are the raw numbers. maybe this will seem more impressive:
Brooklyn Nets avg attendance in 2012-13: 17, 187 per game (96.7% basketball seating capacity of 17,773 people)
New Jersey Nets avg attendance in 2011-12: 13,961 per game (74.6% basketball seating capacity of 18,711 people)
year-over-year change: + 3,226 people per game (+ 23.1%)
also remember, face value ticket prices in Brooklyn are MUCH higher than they were in NJ and they are still selling thousands of more tickets per game.
Payment plans
I think they lost alot of people because of the packages they offered. i was a season ticket holder in jersey for the last two years but it didnt matter it was treated like a new account. Also they didnt offer payment plans everything had to be paid in just 2 payments. my seats were about $4000/season for 2 seats and i had 6 months to pay it off. that jumped to $10,000/Season for 2 seats in bk and only 2 months to pay it off. but i’ve since heard they brought back the payment plans for next season.

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Jay-Z's decision to sell fractional Nets stake means front-page treatment in the Daily News

Is Jay-Z "abandoning" the Nets, as the astonishingly plentiful Daily News front page suggests? No, he's moving on and up.

To quote the Daily News, "The rap mogul and NBA franchise figurehead plans to sell his small share of the Nets, as reported by Yahoo! Sports, because Shawn Carter wants to elevate his new career as a sports agent."

As his mentor from Brooklyn, Jonathan "Jaz-O" Burks, once said, "His loyalty is to his money."

Meanwhile, has the Daily News reported on how the 2,000 cheap seats for the Nets are, after one year, going from $15 to $25? Nope.

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Nets promised 2,000 $15 tickets for Brooklyn. For the second season, they're $25.

July 5, 2012; Ticketmaster list

The promised 2,000 $15 tickets for every Nets game this year may not have been available, but at least $15 was the base price for the cheap seats in the Barclays Center.

As indicated in the graphic at right, some season tickets in the aqua, orange, and light blue sections were available for $15 a seat.

Now, as indicated in the graphic below, prices are rising to $25 per seat, a 66.7% leap, far above the average rise of 8%, as the Times reported casually: "The Nets are also raising season ticket prices next season, by 8 percent."

That 8% rise conceals the fact that, according to a spreadsheet (via NetsDaily) prepared by Nets fan Arpit Vaidya, some prices are steady, some will rise modestly, while some--generally lesser seats in more expensive sections--will actually dip.

Beyond the jump in price for the $15 seats, current $20 seats will leap 50% to $30.

Pre-opening hype

Remember, for years arena backers and builders promised at least 2,000 $15 seats "for" Brooklyn. In May 2004, Borough President Marty Markowitz, told the New York City Council, "It must be enjoyed by Brooklyn's working families."

March 12, 2013, Nets Ticket Central

“We have 2,000 seats priced at 15 dollars and under," Brett Yormark, the Nets/arena CEO, told RealGM 6/15/12. "It’s been our goal from day one to have affordable seating and pricing for anyone that wants to experience Brooklyn Nets basketball."

Before the season began, however, ticket reps suggested such tickets were sold out, apparently aiming to sell more expensive seats.

A good chunk of the limited number of $15 seats were sold as season tickets, so relatively few--about 300 in one case, 480 in another--were made available before games to the casual fan.

Not so many cheap seats

Nets spokesman Barry Baum ultimately said the announced 2,000 tickets include those already sold as season tickets and those offered through community groups, and that the number made available to casual fans changed game to game.

So, will there be any $15 seats next year? I queried Baum and Yormark via Twitter last night. Yormark's non-response: "if you are interested in buying some call me."

Surely the demand exceeds the supply, and Nets tickets are a bargain compared to Knicks tickets at Madison Square Garden.

Still, this hardly means, as the Times conclusorily declared last Sunday, that Nets Make Full Effort to Fit Into Brooklyn.

Recent $15 ticket sales

Recently, $15 tickets were announced on the Brooklyn Nets Facebook page--but not on Twitter (as has been done), as far as I can tell.

A relatively small number of fans both reported they got the tickets, or groused they couldn't get them.

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At tonight's Barclays Center community tickets giveaway, DBNA offers prize for "best African attire"

Tonight is the latest event in the monthly community tickets giveaway mandated under the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement( CBA), and managed by the Downtown Brooklyn Neighborhood Alliance (DBNA), led by the Rev. Herbert Daughtry under the administration of his daughter Sharon Daughtry.

Only nonprofits registered as of last November 30 are eligible for the monthly drawing, though eligibility should reopen in July or August for the second year of operation

As indicated on the flyer below, tonight's event also serves as an African American History Month Celebration and "The DBNA Suite will be given for a game event at Barclays Center to the person wearing the best African attire!!!"

The impulse to recognize the month is understandable. But I'm not sure offering a prize for "best African attire" is the most inclusive strategy for a project serving a broad community, given that some potential attendees, for a number of reasons, do not have such attire in their wardrobe. (Also, isn't African-American history more American than African?)

I'm also not certain what the "DBNA Suite" means, since I didn't know if the DBNA bought or was given a suite.

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Nets say total of 2,000 $15 tickets does include season tickets, won't specify how many offered to general public

The New York Daily News's Michael O'Keeffe followed up on my Brooklyn Bureau article about the Brooklyn Nets' elusive $15 tickets, and got an answer of sorts, published Dec. 17:

[Spokesman Barry] Baum said last week that there are 2,000 $15 tickets offered before every home game, but those tickets may not always be available to the general public. Some have already been sold to season ticket holders, while others are offered to community groups. The number of cheap seats, he said, changes game to game.

And that number, evidence suggests, is less than a quarter of the total.

The Nets are playing it coy. There are 2,000 tickets "offered before every home game" only if "before" means "some time before," counting season tickets. Note that 50 upper bowl tickets a game are given a way through a community sweepstakes.

Misleading rhetoric

Thus, rhetoric from Nets officials and supporters like Borough President Marty Markowitz has been misleading, suggesting that "2,000 tickets will be $15 per game," as if they would be available for the casual purchaser.

"It must be enjoyed by Brooklyn's working families," Markowitz said at a 2004 City Council hearing, a  statement that presumably wasn't aimed at those making a season-long commitment.

Instead, a "limited" number, to quote the Nets, has become available. As I reported, for the Nets home opener, a Ticketmaster graphic suggested there were 301 seats available. For the game Dec. 18 against the Utah Jazz, a Ticketmaster graphic (below) cited 480 seats.

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The Nets anthem gets an article, the fans get a series, and the Dodgers flag pole is dedicated (and what about those $15 tickets?)

The New York Times devotes a section-front article to the Nets' (good, borough-focused) theme song/anthem, and continues its series profiling fans in one section.

Nets-Dodgers connection

Meanwhile, NetsDaily (and ESPN) reported yesterday an announcement from the Nets (updated: about an event today):

At 4 p.m. an eclectic group will gather to honor the Brookyn Dodgers connection to the Brooklyn Nets by unveiling a plaque at the base of the flag pole, which once stood atop Ebbets Field, the Dodgers stadium.
Among those at the dedication will be Sharon Robinson, the daughter of Jackie Robinson; Jerry Stackhouse who wears No. 42 to honor Robinson; Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn's borough president who remembers the Dodgers leaving in 1957; Bruce Ratner and Brett Yormark, and Irina Pavlova, Mikhail Prokhorov's representative as president of ONEXIM Sports and Entertainment Holdings ..

I reported in September that the flagpole dedication was in the works, and the New York Post followed up.

What story is missing?

You'd think some sports writer would ask arena/team spokesman Barry Baum the question he won't answer: how many of the promised 2,000 $15 tickets for Nets home games are actually made available for individual sale?


In a May 2005 presentation to City Council, Forest City promised "approximately" 3,000 such "screecher" seats.



However, a 9/10/12 Nets press release Sept. 10 stated, "A limited number of individual tickets starting at $15 each will be made available 72 hours prior to each Brooklyn Nets home game."

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The power of free tickets to win the Barclays Center friends and good karma, and the multiple pathways--from raffles to ticket dumps--for distribution

Do not underestimate the power of free tickets to Barclays Center events in winning friends and allies. After all, everyone likes something for nothing, especially when it's a high-profile concert or basketball game.

For arena operators, such free tickets can be distributed, in the most part, with little pain: most events won't sell out. And once people are inside the arena, they not only make the building look more full, they spend money on expensive food and drink.

The main downside? The ticket distribution must be managed so as to not make buyers of full-price tickets feel like suckers, as some boxing writers have noted.

Also, people who are truly needy aren't getting that great a deal if they still have to shell out big bucks to eat and drink.

The $15 tickets

The $15 tickets to Brooklyn Nets games have played a somewhat related role, winning good publicity, even though the number available before games seems far less than the much promoted total of 2,000.

Multiple pathways

Free tickets have been distributed in several ways:

• monthly drawings for community groups, as specified in the Community Benefits Agreement (about which I'll write more in another post)
• sweepstakes through newspaper partners, like the New York Daily News (see below)
• one-time ticket dumps, as with the first boxing event at the arena, which involved more than 1,000 freebies
• more casual distribution to acquaintances and those lucky enough to be at certain events, such as at the monthly CBA ticket drawings
• rewards/succor for those affected by Superstorm Sandy, via Borough President Marty Markowitz on 11/13/12
• compensation of sorts to neighbors frustrated by arena operations

In the Daily News

Note, for example, the three advertisements in the Oct. 28 New York Daily News, offering tickets via a sweepstakes to the Journey concert (now canceled) and the Coaches vs. Cancer college basketball tourney.

According to arena estimates, Journey (later canceled for weather) was supposed to attract 9,600 attendees, little more than half arena (peak) capacity, while the basketball games were supposed to draw 8,000. So that left a lot of slack for free tickets.

This is a good deal for both parties: both have excess capacity--advertising space for the newspaper and empty seats for the arena. They can help each other.

Of course there's a limit--if the arena plans to restrict seating from the upper bowl, to make the building look less empty and to keep a cap on staffing, then they can't simply paper the house.

Quieting frustrated neighbors?

I've heard secondhand that Barclays Center officials have offered free tickets to a few people near the the arena who must bear the brunt of illegal parking, workers sitting on their stoops, and other daily inconveniences.

I don't know the extent, but the gesture makes sense--it's a gift that costs the arena very little but might win some goodwill. It doesn't address the impacts, but it provides a distraction and some appearance of value.

A follow-up on the Brett Yormark Foundation

Note that 1,000 tickets to the first boxing event were distributed thanks to the Brett Yormark Foundation, named for the arena/team CEO. I noted last month that the Brett Yormark Foundation had not been previously announced.

Was it set up for this event? Did it even formally exist at the time? When was it established? I'm not sure, and my queries to Yormark and arena spokesman Barry Baum went unanswered.

I can say that searches of the New York State database of nonprofit corporations and an Internal Revenue Service list of foundations came up empty. Now, there may be a time lag in registering data, so those searches aren't definitive.

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There were $15 tickets for tonight's Brooklyn Nets game; reports are they vanished quickly

As with the Brooklyn Nets' debut on Nov. 3, the team put some quantity of $15 tickets--surely not the once-promised (and heavily promoted) 2,000--on sale, with announcements late Saturday on Twitter and Facebook.

(Update: the Nets at 10:42 am tweeted that tickets "remain" (as opposed to "were newly made available"), but one person responded two minutes later that tickets were gone.)

A lot of the comments (but not all) on Facebook express frustration:

I sat in the $15 seats but they were obstructed- was staring right into a cement beam and missed half of the game. Are these seats obstructed too?

Has anyone been able to get tickets on this link? I clicked through immediately after it was posted but it says no group tickets are left. I'll keep refreshing..

Clicked on the link when it first posted (said 10 seconds) and were already all gone!!

There aren't anymore $15 tickets available... : (

I question whether any 3000 tickets were sold to anyone. If this stuff persists, its really going to alienate a welcoming fan base. Not cool, Nets.

I did this for tonight's game. Just keep trying, guys. They're there. I had to try several times but I got 2.

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Nets debut tonight, as planned media hype resumes; will subways be back later? what about those $15 tickets?

The Brooklyn Nets debut at home tonight against the Toronto Raptors, and apparently there will be a new mascot, new anthem, t-shirts, and other hullaballoo, maybe some Dodgers nostalgia. It won't be Nets vs. Knicks as planned for Thursday, but it's still going to get noticed.

Will the transportation plan work? Well, the reliance on buses and cars--as well as LIRR--announced yesterday suggested lots of challenges, but this morning there's word that the MTA is testing the renewal of Manhattan to Brooklyn subway service. If it's live by mid-afternoon, that will be a huge help to event-goers.

Update 1:30 pm: The 4/5 trains are back, and the Q train is expected to be back later this afternoon. That will ease the burden on other forms of transit.

The Knicks and the Marathon

Some people don't even think the Knicks should have played last night. Mike Lupica in the Daily News, Mayor Bloomberg's decision to cancel marathon right step in nick of time: The mayor came under heavy attack from critics for going forward with the marathon in a week where over 40 New Yorkers were killed and thousands more left homeless.:

They certainly are going to play a football game in New Jersey on Sunday, Giants against the Steelers. But at least they are not going to play it at the Jersey Shore. And by the way? If that game had been postponed, nobody would have argued with that decision. And the Knicks should not have played a basketball game at the Garden on Friday night, another show that just had to go on.
But why?
There are millions without power in this whole area we think of as New York, and people sit in lines forever to buy gas, where they are still able to buy gas, and then go home and live in the cold and the dark.
Life in Breezy Point will never be the same because of this storm, all those houses lost, gone, like a book of matches catching fire, that fast.
Life in the ravaged parts of Staten Island will never be the same.

Opening hype

The cliches about Brooklyn continue. Writes Lisa Olsen in The Sporting News, Brooklyn Nets opening night: A borough, a team and a dream:

“Walk around and you’ll hear all about how that broke Brooklyn’s heart. Everyone has their story,” the coach of the Nets tells shooting guard Joe Johnson, who nods and says he hopes to hear all the tales. To hear about the Dodgers’ integration of baseball when most other teams refused to budge, about Jackie Robinson’s dignity and grace, about the majesty of Ebbets Field and the hole left when Walter O’Malley moved the team to Los Angeles in 1958, after his dream to build a ballpark along the Atlantic Railroad Yards failed. The spot is where the $1 billion state-of-the-art Barclays Center now stands.

It's not the spot, and it's not $1 billion.

More from the article:

Adam Salazar, a native Brooklynite who produces and films a docuseries called City Hardwood about NYC public school hoops (Lincoln High and Ethan Telfair were featured in Season 1), says bluntly: “Brooklyn is the coolest borough, and we’re going to have the coolest team. I mean, who would you rather root for—Jay-Z’s team or Dolan’s?
“The Knicks are so frustrating, there’s no way the Nets don’t cut into this. Pretty much all of Brooklyn is going to be Nets fans if they aren’t already,” he adds. “You’re going to see people wearing Brooklyn Nets gear more than Knicks gear worldwide in pretty short order. It may take a little while, but within a generation of sports fans the Brooklyn Nets will be the dominant team in NYC.”

Not sure about that, but it is true that the Knicks' ownership has repeatedly sabotaged the team's relationship with fans.

The brand new start

Tbe Star-Ledger reported, in Nets looking for a `brand' new start in Brooklyn:

This is certain: The Nets, replanted across two rivers, are a cosmic leap removed from the place they held in the imagination only a few months ago.
The experts in name equity (another bit of lexicon lifted from the facelift handbook) agree that the first decision was the critical one, to gain the cachet that comes with Brooklyn. And the Nets have another asset, and this may come as a revelation.
They have the Knicks.
If the Knicks are establishment, the Nets are cutting edge. If Madison Square Garden is an opera house, the Barclays Center is street theater. In effect, the Knicks enable the Nets to tell a story, of the underdog lifting up from the shadow of the giant.
...The Nets have their high-end side, with the priciest tickets going for $1,500, but of the arena’s 17,734 seats, the club says 2,000 each game will go for $15.

Actually, those 2.000 tickets represent more hype than anything else. They haven't put 2,000 tickets on sale for fans; rather, there was some limited amount available yesterday on Facebook. Maybe today there will be a few more.

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What happened to the "2,000" $15 tickets for each Brooklyn Nets game? Well, it looks like a few hundred tickets were sold this morning, for those on Facebook

As I wrote 9/25/12, backers of the Brooklyn Nets, including Borough President Marty Markowitz, arena developer Bruce Ratner, and team/arena CEO Brett Yormark, have made a big deal out of the claimed 2,000 seats that would cost people only $15.

But they've been very hard to get, with some ticket reps even claiming that they were sold out and wouldn't become available.

Some were apparently sold as season tickets, and team spokesman Barry Baum told me, with notable lack of precision, "As we promised there will be $15 seats available for purchase before each game."

Update: The Nets announced 9/10/12:

A limited number of individual tickets starting at $15 each will be made available 72 hours prior to each Brooklyn Nets home game. Details to follow.

Some tickets today

Some--perhaps just 301--$15 seats to the opening night game tomorrow were made available this morning, via the Brooklyn Nets Facebook page, as noted in the screenshot above right. (Of course there was a sponsor attached, this time Modell's.) The announcement was also on Twitter:

However, those tickets sold out very quickly, as noted in comments on that Facebook post. Despite 380 "likes," only some people were successful, with others stymied. One even commented that scalpers and ticket brokers might have gotten the seats; after all, there's still a hot secondary market for the Nets' belated debut.

Pending questions

How many seats were put on sale? Will more be sold?

I queried Baum, but haven't heard back.

Shouldn't some seats be available at the box office or by phone for those who aren't attuned to Facebook?

Will they do it this way for every game? (Presumably for some games, where there's less demand, they will have more $15 tickets.)

Meanwhile, there are tickets available via Ticketmaster--for $55.60, as noted in the screenshot above left. On the resale marketplace, seats on StubHub start at $50, though that price should fluctuate.

Only 301 $15 tickets sold?

From the screenshot below (from here), it looks like only 301 $15 tickets were put up for sale, though that's hardly certain.

If you click through on the Find Tickets button, however, the screen indicates that there are "no group tickets left."

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After Nets' coveted home opener, tickets at three games already significantly discounted

Yes, there's huge demand for the Brooklyn Nets' home opener Nov. 1 against the New York Knicks, with tickets on the secondary market starting at about $175. (They were $200 last week.)

But the third, fourth, and fifth games are already on discount--and that's without some number of the elusive but highly promoted $15 seats coming open.

CBS Local, via Crowd Seats, has an offer for tickets from 44% to 51% off three games in the following two weeks. (And those aren't the biggest bargains--see below.)

Check StubHub

Also, StubHub--which is establishing a retail storefront on Atlantic Avenue west of the arena--has lots of even cheaper seats for those games, likely from season ticket holders who see these as less interesting and/or bought the seats as an investment.

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Brooklyn Nets ticket prices nearly triple on secondary market compared to Newark

A press release from Ticket Liquidator, The BK Effect: Brooklyn Nets Ticket Prices Almost Triple on Secondary Market Compared to Last Season:

The Brooklyn Nets move across the Hudson River from New Jersey has created a 189 percent spike in average ticket prices so far this year on Ticket Liquidator, a leading secondary ticket marketplace. New Jersey Nets tickets sold on Ticket Liquidator last season averaged $50.58; this season Brooklyn Nets ticket prices have averaged $146.17.
The Brooklyn Nets skyrocketed to the fifth-highest average ticket price this season, behind only the Los Angeles Lakers at $250.27; the Los Angeles Clippers at $223.52; the New York Knicks at $183.63; and the Miami Heat at $182.39. Besides the Nets move from New Jersey’s Prudential Center to Brooklyn’s new $1 billion Barclays Center, other factors have also influenced the spike in ticket prices.
Brooklyn Net’s minority owner, hip-hop mogul Sean [sic] “Jay-Z” Carter, has been an active face of the re-branded Nets... Russian billionaire owner Mikhail Prokhorov has also demonstrated a willingness to spend money in pursuit of top free agents...
Still, the disparity in ticket prices from season-to-season is currently unrivaled in the NBA, as other teams have seen only small changes with the addition of high profile free agents. ...Of course, the rise in the average price of Brooklyn Nets this season will only be sustained if the team is racking up wins on their new herringbone-patterned home-court. 

So the move of the team to a new market and the newness of the arena--both far different from Newark--are likely the biggest factors. Note that prices have been bid up for certain games, notably as the opening one against the New York Knicks, that have a cachet that come from being first.

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