Synergy! On June 12, FCR's Gilmartin to be honored at Brooklyn Hospital Foundation Founders Ball, held at arena

Atlantic Yards/Barclays Center developer Forest City Ratner has become the 800-pound gorilla of local philanthropy, offering not just relatively deep pockets but also an event space for certain groups.

The Brooklyn Hospital Center is a corporate partner of the arena, the latter presumably involving payments from the former in exchange for promotion. Now the hospital on June 12 will hold its 2013 Founders Ball at the arena.

Patch reported 5/15/13 that more than $1.3 million from the event will help modernize the hospital's emergency room, with all 840 tickets sold. (The event last year, held at Steiner Studios, raised $908,000.)

Gilmartin honored

The lead honoree? Forest City's new CEO MaryAnne Gilmartin, who'll receive the 2013 Founders Medal for "Voluntarism, Philanthropy, and Service to the Community."

A co-chair of the event is Brett Yormark, CEO Barclays Center & Brooklyn Nets, and surely the arena, team, and company will be making significant contributions to honor Gilmartin. It is not unlike the commencement activities held by Long Island University (an arena corporate partner) held at the Barclays Center, with Forest City Chairman Bruce Ratner getting an honorary degree.

Alternatively, Gilmartin also deserves credit for savvy business and rather bare-knuckled tactics.

As I reported last October, she spoke at an investor update 10/22/12, and revealed that, rather than build a platform over the blighted Vanderbilt Yard as plans long indicated, Forest City would first build four towers over the southeast block, now site of the arena parking lot.

Forest City's generosity & the media halo

Forest City's seeming generosity has strategic aspects. An award to Gilmartin helps establish the company's newly-elevated CEO as a significant player in Brooklyn, to which she has just moved from Westchester.

The money of course comes easier when the developer saves all kinds of money on free or discounted public land, from the city and the MTA.

And such events have already generated a media halo for those involved, while the press tends to ignore less flattering news, like the arena's leaking bass.

As New York Times columnist Michael Powell wrote yesterday, regarding Maurice R. Greenberg, the former C.E.O. of American International Group:

Mr. Greenberg has also trumpeted his good works. He has long spread money like seed corn to local charities. It’s a practiced turn; Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg uses his charitable giving as a sort of political force multiplier.
“New York,” a business leader notes, “tends to appreciate charitable giving no matter its source.”
TWO weeks ago, the Community Service Society, one of the city’s best-known left-liberal groups, put on a grand party in honor of Mr. Greenberg and that trusty lawyer, Mr. Boies. As the crowd showered the philanthropist with applause, they perhaps pushed out of their consciousness that Mr. Greenberg had supported the conservative Gov. Rick Perry of Texas for president and given heavily to efforts to beat back tighter financial regulation.

A tip-off event at arena

As seen in the screenshot below, the Brooklyn Hospital Foundation held a tip-off event at the arena, featuring "basketball legend" Darryl Dawkins, who's always handy to lend some giant authenticity and fun to a Nets event.

emergency cash loan

Up To $1500 Quick Loan Online. No Hassle. Fast Instant Approval. Withdraw Your Cash. Get Cash Fast Today!

Rating of emergency cash loan

Get Online Application at online payday loans.

Nets to open boutique in Coney Island, as Thor Equities' Sitt finally fills some space

Daily News photo

It's sure nice when you have a newspaper on your side.

On Saturday, 5/18/13, the New York Daily News, the sponsor of the Barclays Center plaza, broke the news, complete with (at least online) four large photos of Brooklynettes cheerleaders in bikinis.

The headline and subhed: Brooklyn Nets boutique to open in Coney Island on Thursday: The Nets Shop by Adidas will feature beach balls, flip-flops, visors and the usual Nets gear, but the black-and-white bikinis for the ladies may be the biggest draw.

The article was attributed to Jason Sheftell, real estate correspondent, noted sycophant:

Nets bikinis and other fun summer merchandise will be available on the Coney Island beachfront this season in the basketball team’s signature black and white.
“After one year, we’re fourth in the NBA in apparel,” said Nets and Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark. “But this isn’t about sports. The Brooklyn Nets are an international lifestyle brand. Our colors have become synonymous with the borough.”
The Coney Island store will feature beach balls, flip-flops, visors, the usual Nets gear, and of course shiny new two-piece bathing suits for about $80.

There's a "towel cutting" this Thursday, May 24.

Who's the landlord?

“We want to do everything we can to constantly better the Coney Island experience,” claimed Thor Equities CEO Joe Sitt, the store's landlord. “Right away, this adds to the quality of the retail.”

Here's Tricia Vita of Amusing the Zillion, writing 6/14/11 (plus more on Sitt and Thor Equities):

Joe Sitt is infamous for evicting amusement rides from his Coney Island properties. In 2007, the real estate speculator evicted the Zipper from 12th Street. He also evicted Norman Kaufman’s Go Karts, Bumper Boats and Batting Cages from Stillwell Avenue to “allow the new development to proceed in a timely manner,” but has built NOTHING there except a failed flea market in 2009 and another flea market this summer. (“Thor’s Coney Island: What Stillwell Looked Like Before Joe Sitt,” ATZ, March 3, 2010)
It’s bad enough that the City has let Joe Sitt continue to get away with blighting the amusement area. Why do the New York Times and other mainstream media continue to enable Sitt’s bad behavior with clueless coverage referring to him as a developer? Read the graffiti scrawled on his so-called construction fence: It says“Blight for Spite.”

Back in Coney

Meanwhile, the annual Mermaid Parade, its income sources devastated by Sandy, is raising money via Kickstarter, with two weeks to go.

emergency cash loan

Up To $1500 Quick Loan Online. No Hassle. Fast Instant Approval. Withdraw Your Cash. Get Cash Fast Today!

Rating of emergency cash loan

Get Online Application at online payday loans.

"Hello Playoffs": Nets promote "Blackout in Brooklyn" theme; Yormark yo-yo's on promise of t-shirt giveaways (updated)

The Brooklyn Nets are eagerly promoting their "Blackout in Brooklyn" playoffs theme, with coverage this morning on Fox 5 New York and in the Daily News (which sponsors the arena plaza). Nets/arena CEO Brett Yormark got typically chummy with hosts Greg Kelly and Rosanna Scotto (his soon-to-be sister-in-law).

What Yormark didn't say--which has infuriated some fans--is that the Nets would be giving away special playoff jerseys, as do other teams, and as he apparently promised last week on Twitter.

Yormark did give jerseys to the hosts, as seen in the screenshot above right, but otherwise, as in the photo below left, it's a revenue opportunity on the arena plaza.

Update: Yormark later said on Twitter that fans would get free t-shirts, at least for the first game.

Photo outside Barclays Center last night

"We're very excited," Yormark said, calling the move to Brooklyn "transformative... We wanted to bring Brooklyn a great team, a playoff caliber team."

So the Nets start the playoffs Saturday against the Chicago Bulls, and "very few" tickets are available.

Yormark said it would be "a celebration of Brooklyn, the last playoff game was 1956. The market's been relatively underserved. we're coming out with our playoff theme... asking everyone to wear black and vote yes for the Nets."

He went on to describe how the theme is being reflected in special food offerings and, guess what, there was the arena's executive chef, joined by a couple of Brooklynettes, to show it off.

Yormark described how the Nets went from 31st in the league in merchandise sales (behind even the defunct Seattle SuperSonics) to fourth, and how playoff tickets are being printed in black and white.

What about those t-shirts?


I previously observed that the "Blackout in Brooklyn" theme is a little ominous for those who remember the actual 1977 blackout.

Fans are exercised about the t-shirt issue.The Brooklyn Game's Devin Kharpertian wrote yesterday, Nets selling — not giving away? — “blackout in Brooklyn” shirts.

He cited a report by ESPN Sports Business reporter Darren Rovell that the Nets were selling selling black t-shirts, for the price of $22.

By contrast, in Oklahoma City, the Thunder gave away shirts at every game to color the arena blue or white. Nets ticket office personnel

Yormark's seemingly forked tongue

As Kharpertian noted, a fan reported that Nets ticket officials "emphatically said the team would not be giving away t-shirts for the first playoff game."

But Yormark on April 13 seemed to promise on Twitter (see screenshot at right) that t-shirts would be given away.at the front door.

Kharpertian calls it "potentially another misstep in a season chock-full of marketing issues for Brooklyn," including when the team "shut down their clever, off-beat PR account," the boost in prices of cheap seats (as I've reported) from $15 to $25, and the requirement that fans pre-pay for all potential playoff games.

His conclusion:

My advice to the Nets: you want to create a real community in Brooklyn? Make people feel like you're inviting them to something. Don't make it about how much money you can take from the community now. Get them involved in a way that doesn't feel like you have to "buy in."
Brooklyn is a long-term game. You're here for a while. Take the hit. Give away the damn shirts.

Update: Later, Yormark concurred.

An approving sports voice

Yesterday, the New York Times's Howard Beck wrote an assessment, Nets Can Grow, and Brooklyn Can Learn to Cheer:

Most N.B.A. announcers do not stand and lead cheers. But then, most fans don’t need the cajoling. [Nets announcer David] Diamante is only doing what’s necessary, injecting enthusiasm into a crowd that is sometimes too hip, too casual, too detached for its own good.
Eighty-one games into this inaugural season, newly branded Nets fans are — like the team they follow — still learning, still carving an identity, still developing emotional bonds.

From retail outlet on Barclays Center plaza

As the comedian Jimmy Fallon, a season ticket-holder, was quoted acerbically observing in a recent GQ article: “No one’s standing up. See? They need to work on this. This will not be here in a year. It’s a new team. They haven’t figured out what they want to be yet.”
The good news, seven months into the Brooklyn era, is that the Nets have turned out to be a pretty good team, with a growing (if sometimes aloof) fan base, wildly popular merchandise and promising results on and off the court. 

...The arena has been filled to 97 percent of capacity, with an average attendance of 17,196 and 22 sellouts — better than any of the Nets’ last 14 seasons in New Jersey. Their games have drawn an average of 93,000 viewers on YES, a 238 percent increase over last season. The network has set the single-game viewership record twice this season. 

The Nets’ sleek black-and-white jersey is fourth on the N.B.A.’s best-seller list. In the neighborhoods surrounding Barclays Center, fans wearing Nets gear outnumber those wearing Knicks gear by a wide margin.

No mention of the missteps noted by The Brooklyn Game, though Beck does describe the variable on-court performance by point guard Deron Williams and shooting guard Joe Johnson.

As for the loss of Jay-Z, who "gave the franchise a legitimacy it sorely needed after decades of irrelevance in New Jersey," that's not needed now:

But that presence was more critical last fall, and in the years preceding the move, than it is today. The Nets are established now, their place in the Brooklyn consciousness secure. The perceived value of Jay-Z as player recruiter never materialized, despite his popularity. LeBron James never came... 

On their best nights, fans start the “Brooklyn” chants without prompting, stand without being told and scream from start to finish. Occasionally, they need a nudge. But it is just Year 1, after all.

Playoffs theme on video

To pump up fans, according to NetsDaily, the Nets have created the video below, which debuted at last night's final-season game and will run on arena screens during the playoffs. (Note one slogan: "My borough is thorough.")



A fan's notes

Bryan Joiner yesterday wrote on The Classical, The Home Team: A year with the Brooklyn Nets: a dull team, but the home team., about his desire to have season tickets for a team, and how it was finally fulfilled when the Nets moved 12 minutes from his apartment:

It has been better than I'd hoped. Everyone has a different idea of what it means to go to a basketball game, and I’ve used my access to bring a whole host of friends, even those who don’t like sports but are willing to go for the sake of the in-venue Fatty Cue and cheese-covered corn. I’m probably a typical Nets season ticket holder, in that I’m a so-so fan of the team—the Knicks fans absolutely slaughtered the Nets fans during their visits, and the Celtics, Lakers and Heat fans didn’t do too badly themselves—but this year was all gravy from the get-go. The Nets had finally shown up, and that was the important part. I had shown up with them. And so had Maria.
What the Nets lack in presence on the court, they make up for in the stands. This is a good thing, because this Nets team is rice-cake level bland.
... [Fellow fan] Maria’s skipping the playoffs. She didn’t feel like shelling out the cash. I can’t blame her. This team was never about winning a championship. The championship was getting the team here, and getting ourselves into the building. I’ve been playing with house money since game one. It’s all I ever wanted, and it’s as much about Maria as it is about the Nets. On the court, the Nets are doing work. It’s all fun and games in the stands. I’ve had more fun than I deserve, and exactly as much as I’d dreamed. It's not their victories I'm worried about, and I suspect I'm not alone.

Barclays grows in consciousness

Crain's New York Business wrote yesterday, Barclays takes on the Garden in huge title fight: Brooklyn upstart makes major gains over its venerable rival in the battle for share of the national consciousness under “famous New York City arenas.”:

On a recent episode of ABC's hit show Nashville, the two country-music mega stars, played by Connie Britton and Hayden Panettiere, arrive in New York City for the biggest show of their tour. It's no surprise the crooners sell out their concert, but what's perhaps unexpected is where. The newbie Barclays Center, rather than the world famous Madison Square Garden, gets the big-league cameo on prime-time national TV. And that was just one of several recent star turns for the new Brooklyn stadium on the block.
In February, Barclays was mentioned on an episode of How I Met Your Mother, when two characters got kicked out of the stadium. And next month, "Barclays" will be a clue contestants on Jeopardy! will need to know about, sources said.
These days Barclays is not just giving the Garden a run for its money as an alternative venue for the Rolling Stones or the Ringling Bros. circus—now it's competing with its rival as the arena associated with New York City in the national consciousness. And some of that attention came merely because it offered producers a better deal than the Garden.
"The truth is, [that episode of Nashville] was originally written for Madison Square Garden," said Loucas George, producer of Nashville. "We reached out to Madison Square Garden, but they wanted to charge us a lot of money to use their name, which I thought was crazy because we're basically giving them a national ad spot."

I love how the Jeopardy reference is attributed to "sources said." I'd bet the "sources" are people associated with Barclays who are not supposed to be publicizing it.

A new celebrity comes to fore?

Nets Daily reported yesterday:

Tech investor and social media pioneer Alexis Ohanian told Bloomberg News Tuesday that he's "absolutely" interested in buying jay-Z's shares, equal to 0.067 percent of the Nets team and a somewhat larger percentage of the Barclays Center holding company. Ohanian is a native of Brooklyn and Nets season ticket-holder.
Diedre Bolton, host of Bloomberg's "Money Moves" asked Ohanian, founder of Reddit.com, about his interest in the team.
"You're a big Nets fan," noted Bolton. "Jay-Z has to sell off his stake which is pretty small. Would you buy it?"
"Absolutely," answered Ohanian. "In fact, I have tried to make as many public and private overtures as I can to let HOVA know that I would absolutely be honored to buy those shares."
...[Ohanian] posted Wednesday on NetsDaily, saying he hoped to "make the Nets the most internet team in the league" and posted this image. Ohanian has been nominated for the TIME 100 this year and previously was named to Forbes "30 Under 30."

emergency cash loan

Up To $1500 Quick Loan Online. No Hassle. Fast Instant Approval. Withdraw Your Cash. Get Cash Fast Today!

Rating of emergency cash loan

Get Online Application at online payday loans.

The Nets' playoff theme, "Blackout in Brooklyn" (and is anyone else left uneasy?)

It's certainly understandable why the Brooklyn Nets would choose "Blackout in Brooklyn" as the team's playoff theme, though, as I explain below, those with some recollection of Brooklyn history might be left uneasy.

Self-promotion

As "local connections" Patch contributor Leah L. (almost surely this Barclays Center communications intern) on 4/13/13 described it:

Hello Playoffs!The Brooklyn Nets today unveiled their 2013 NBA Playoffs fan experience campaign,, Blackout in Brooklyn. During the Nets playoff run, Brooklynites across the borough and fans attending games at Barclays Center are encouraged to wear black, one of the team’s colors, to represent Brooklyn’s pride, boldness, and strength. Brooklyn Nets Playoffs are presented by American Express, a Founding Partner of Barclays Center.
“Brooklyn, I want to see your pride. Represent your home team in black during the Playoffs,” said Brooklyn Nets star guard Deron Williams. “You have stood behind us all season and now we’re proud to be the borough’s first playoff team since 1956. Let me hear your BROOOOK-LYYYYN chant!”
Barclays Center will undergo a transformation for the Playoffs with signage changing to #HelloPlayoffs and Blackout in Brooklyn. Black will be featured throughout the venue with specially designed décor, foods, including black and white popcorn, black pastas, and chocolate desserts, and Brooklyn Nets Playoff merchandise, which is currently available at Nets Shop by adidas at Barclays Center and at netsstore.com. Musical performers from across the borough will be showcased in-game and on the Daily News Plaza as fans arrive at the arena.
As the presenting sponsor of the 2013 Brooklyn Nets Playoffs, American Express is providing a number of exclusive benefits for American Express Cardmembers, such as exclusive pre-sale access to individual Playoff game tickets and access to specially designed private experiences.
Brooklyn Nets Playoff tickets are currently on sale. Fans interested in purchasing tickets for Brooklyn Nets Playoff games at Barclays Center can call 800-4NBA-TIX or visit Brooklynnets.com for more information. Playoff coverage can be found online at Brooklynnets.com, Facebook.com/Brooklynnets, Twitter.com/Brooklynnets, and via other Brooklyn Nets social media properties. Download the Brooklyn Nets and Barclays Center apps to follow the team throughout the Playoffs!

In the Post

The New York Post's Brooklyn blog got the scoop, on 4/12/13, with Nets tipping off 'Blackout in Brooklyn' playoff campaign:

There’s going to be a “Blackout in Brooklyn” for Nets’ home playoff games – and it has nothing to any local TV-coverage restrictions.

With Barclays Center later in the month set to host the borough’s first major-league playoff games since 1956 when the Dodgers were still in town, arena brass plan to cover most of the Nets’ new home in the team’s black-and-white-colors – even the food that’ll be served.

The goal of the new “Blackout in Brooklyn” campaign: getting fans to sup up home-court advantage by dressing in team colors during playoff games and also sport black-and-white attire in honor of the Nets outside the arena, too.

“When you come in, you are going to feel like there’s truly a ‘Blackout in Brooklyn’ – everything even down to the food and drink,” Nets/Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark told the Post. “This is a huge moment for us and the borough, and it’s time to celebrate.”

Those heading to rap mogul Jay-Z’s swanky 40/40 Club and other concessions will get to choose from a feast of black-and-white colored pastas, burgers, salads, cotton candy, popcorn, cakes and dozens of other edible items.

Images of Nets' stars in a black-and-white motif will be plastered throughout the arena, and other new team-colored signage will be hung along the windows as well.

Even playoff tickets are being printed in black and white, and only predominately black-colored shirts and merchandise will be sold at the arena during playoff games.

The arena already is dimly lit and has black seats, giving arena honchos a head start to the “Blackout” the team is seeking.

Yormark said other teams have historically taken similar measures to boost home-court advantage – such as fans of the NBA Champion Miami Heat having “White Out” themes for their games. But Yormark said his club “is taking this idea to another level.”

On NBA TV

"It's been an incredible transformation, from a brand perspective, a business perspective," declared Yormark in an excerpt from "The Association," the NBA TV series. "We really want to open up the playoffs in a dramatic fashion."

Chief Marketing Officer Fred Mangione, explained, "Even the website, as you see it today, will flip into a total black, not black and white, but all black with a 'blackout' theme."

"It's all about taking it to a whole new level," Yormark continued. "People answer the phone, 'Hello, playoffs, it's Blackout in Brooklyn. May I help you, please."

The other notions of "blackout"

There's a benign historical reference in there, to the famous blackout cake from defunct Brooklyn bakery Ebinger's, but there's a more somber one, to the 1977 blackout that caused massive destruction in Bushwick, as in the image below, via the Brooklyn Historical Society.

Surely Yormark, a New Jersey guy who once told an interviewer he'd never heard of P.T. Barnum, doesn't know.

And Borough President Marty Markowitz, who surely does know, has played along, declaring in
his State of the Borough Address 4/11/13:

AND STARTING ON APRIL 20TH, WHEN OUR BROOKLYN NETS BEGIN THEIR PLAYOFF MARCH, I ONLY WANT TO SEE BROOKLYNITES WEARING BLACK!
WE’RE GONNA BLACKOUT BROOKLYN! ANYONE CAUGHT WEARING ORANGE AND BLUE WILL BE GUILTY OF TREASON!

Note that Markowitz's scripts are typically in capital letters (easier to read?) and have exclamation points.

As I noted in my coverage of his speech, the program cover happened to be in orange and blue.

emergency cash loan

Up To $1500 Quick Loan Online. No Hassle. Fast Instant Approval. Withdraw Your Cash. Get Cash Fast Today!

Rating of emergency cash loan

Get Online Application at online payday loans.

Islanders may move to Brooklyn a year early; Daily News hypes Barclays Center courtside club

While the New York Islanders last October announced a move to the Barclays Center in 2015, owner Charles Wang wouldn't rule out an earlier move. Yesterday, IslandersPointBlank suggested, based on unnamed sources, that the move could come a year earlier, in the fall of 2014:

According to sources with Nassau and the Islanders, both sides are open to a financial arrangement that could benefit the bankrupt county and the money-losing team. The Islanders’ lease does not expire for another two full seasons, in the summer of 2015.
Leaving Nassau Coliseum a year earlier would enable the Islanders to begin capitalizing on revenue streams in Brooklyn, while not playing as lame duck tenants at the old barn on Hempstead Turnpike any longer than possible.

And there might be a preseason game at the Barclays Center in the fall.

"Hottest scene in town"

Sycophantic Daily News real estate correspondent Jason Sheftell writes Game on: Calvin Klein Courtside Club at Barclays Center is the hottest scene in town: When the Nets are playing, the Club attracts a diverse group of celebs, citizens and high rollers to its sleek space.

On the one hand it's exclusive:

This is not the hottest new club in town or a celebrity roll-out event. It’s pregame at the Calvin Klein Courtside Club, below street level at Barclays Center — and only players’ families, VIPs, or paying courtside seat holders get in.
“Forget the Garden,” said Sam Calhoun from Brownsville, hanging in the Vault, the exclusive smaller space next door. “Look around, this is way cooler than any club.”

On the other, it's not:

“The entire idea of the arena is to make everyone feel like a VIP,” says Brooklyn Nets and Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark. “That was Jay-Z. He wanted to make sure, whether you’re in the last row or the first row, that you felt special.”

Do you think the Daily News mentions that the newspaper sponsors the Barclays Center plaza? Nope.

emergency cash loan

Up To $1500 Quick Loan Online. No Hassle. Fast Instant Approval. Withdraw Your Cash. Get Cash Fast Today!

Rating of emergency cash loan

Get Online Application at online payday loans.

Brett Yormark, 2012: "But one of the things that we committed to was to have over 2000 seats priced at $15 and under" (can you count the untruths?)

Nets/Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark is getting some nice publicity--first a Times exclusive, then coverage in the Post, Patch, and more--for his $75,000 donation for a renovated kids gym in Fort Greene.

Meanwhile, the man who once claimed he'd never heard of P.T. Barnum has raised Nets ticket prices on the cheap seats from $15 to $25, presaging approximately  $20,000 more in revenue per game. No press release, so no coverage. (No, American journalism is not in its glory days, as Steven Waldman wrote last week in CJR, and press releases supply ever more content.)

Yormark on the "commitment

Let's look back on the "exclusive" interview  Yormark had 3/16/12 on the Fox Business Channel, when he promised cheap seats for Brooklynites.

"Just a brand new building does not a winning team make," a host asked Yormark. "What else are you going to offer when basketball tickets are getting extraordinarily expensive for a family of four?"



"First of all, the Barclays Center is bigger than just basketball," Yormark responded. "We'll do 225 events annually: concerts, boxing, college sports, family sports, and, of course the Brooklyn Nets."

"But one of the things that we committed to was to have over 2000 seats priced at $15 and under," he continued. "Anyone that wants to experience the Brooklyn Nets at the Barclays Center will have the wherewithal to do so. That's a commitment that ownership made years ago, and are holding to."

They didn't have over 2000 seats at $15. And they didn't have any under $15, unless you count the fraction of giveaways.

And that commitment lasted exactly one year.

The press release

Note this line: "the first key project presented by the Yormark Family Foundation." I suspect the word key was used to differentiate it from the ticket giveaway last October aimed to fill seats at the first arena boxing event.

emergency cash loan

Up To $1500 Quick Loan Online. No Hassle. Fast Instant Approval. Withdraw Your Cash. Get Cash Fast Today!

Rating of emergency cash loan

Get Online Application at online payday loans.

"Posing for holy cards": how the press gets reminded of team/arena civic virtues, but misses more questionable issues

“News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising,” the British publisher Lord Northcliffe famously said, and while that may be sweeping, it's a good frame to analyze how and when certain press coverage emerges.

As I wrote 3/10/13, If the New York Times says so, then you know it's true: Nets Make Full Effort to Fit Into Brooklyn.

That article, focusing on an unspecified donation to a Brooklyn Boys & Girls Club by Nets/arena CEO Brett Yormark, surely was generated by a p.r. pitch. (Remember, his longtime strategy was a press release a day.)

In other words, advertising. (The story's now on Patch, since the dedication event is tomorrow.) Also advertising-like is the coverage of principal owner Mikhail Prokhorov's expression of happiness that the team would make the playoffs.

By contrast, consider the non-coverage of the news that the lowest price for Nets tickets next year will rise to $25, from a much-hyped $15 in the inaugural season.

To report that would mean not relying on the Nets' shorthand that prices, overall, would rise 8 percent, but to do a little work--to compare the charts for each season. Actually, it would require not much work, since a spreadsheet-savvy Nets fan did it himself.

The need for "antimanipulation"

It all makes me wonder how often people in the news business remind themselves of the need for "antimanipulation," that deliciously apt topic in a progressive Russian school, as described in Clifford Levy's 9/15/11 Times Magazine article My Family’s Experiment in Extreme Schooling:

New Humanitarian had standard subjects, like history and math, and Danya had many hours of homework a week. But Bogin added courses like antimanipulation, which was intended to give children tools to decipher commercial or political messages.

One example of such antimanipulation--completely routine in execution, but unusual since it went against the tide--was the 2/15/13 DNAinfo.com report Most Barclays Center Jobs Are Part-Time With No Benefits.

It was so unusual it made the back page (see bottom right) of a recent issue of the New Republic, as a staffer tallied "compelling" recent reading.

Another example: the Brooklyn Eagle's anomalously skeptical coverage, in January 2012, of developer Forest City Ratner's failure to hire the promised Independent Compliance Monitor for the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement. That story could be written yet again, given the developer's flat statement last month, without regret, that there's no plan to hire such a monitor.

But the big news today, as the Daily News cover at left suggests, is that MTV's Video Music Awards show is coming to Brooklyn.

"The show last aired from New York in 2009, when it took place at Radio City," the Daily News reported, featuring enthusiastic quotes from Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Borough President Marty Markowitz about the boost to the local economy and the borough's image.

To the Post, MTV President Stephen Friedman cited "[t]The vibrancy and cultural prowess that's now coming out of Brooklyn – whether it’s the music scene, sports scene or food scene" and noted that many staff members live in Brooklyn.

“There is a lot of local pride with the young people who work there,” he added. “You don’t get that at a lot of other venues.”

Sure, they've been trained to be cheerful and prideful. Surely they are--to a point. But they still don't have health insurance.

"Posing for holy cards"

Consider the coverage of a recent competition for fans to design Brooklyn Nets-themed sneakers, with judging by players and the hip-hop star Fabolous.

The Nets and the Barclays Center frequently host such "community" events. They have their value, but those reporting on them should remember what they're not being told.

A 3/17/13 op-ed in the Times by Michael Mudd, a former executive VP at Kraft Foods, headlined How to Force Ethics on the Food Industry, offered a reminder:

Next time you hear of a big food or beverage company sponsoring an after-school physical activity program in your community, you can be sure they’ll say it’s to show “our company’s concern for our kids’ health.” But the real intent is to look angelic while making consumers feel good about the brand and drawing attention away from the unhealthful nature of the company’s products. “Posing for holy cards,” as one of my colleagues used to put it.

The Nets, too, "pose for holy cards." The product isn't unhealthy, but there's a corporation trying to make money, distracting from more complicated issues like worker pay, the cost of tickets, leaking bass, and some sweet land deals.

Similarly, consider the feature coverage (NY1, Bleacher Report) of the Barclays Center's "cool" elevator and underground rotating turntable.

Sure, it's an innovation, but it doesn't work so perfectly. In fact, delivery trucks often idle on nearby residential streets, as noted on Atlantic Yards Watch. They must not send out the right press releases.

emergency cash loan

Up To $1500 Quick Loan Online. No Hassle. Fast Instant Approval. Withdraw Your Cash. Get Cash Fast Today!

Rating of emergency cash loan

Get Online Application at online payday loans.

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.

emergency cash loan

Up To $1500 Quick Loan Online. No Hassle. Fast Instant Approval. Withdraw Your Cash. Get Cash Fast Today!

Rating of emergency cash loan

Get Online Application at online payday loans.

Times: Yormark donation means " Nets Make Full Effort to Fit Into Brooklyn" (yeah, sure)

If the New York Times says so (or repeats the p.r. pitch), then you know it's true: Nets Make Full Effort to Fit Into Brooklyn.

The article, in the Sports section's Off the Dribble blog and in today's print paper, has a spoon-fed scoop:

One way the Nets have been able to keep the momentum going for their move to Brooklyn has been to embrace the philosophy the Dodgers employed when they were the borough’s lone professional sports team, which was to be involved in all aspects of the community. They will continue that tactic on Friday when Brett Yormark, the team’s chief executive, officially reopens the basketball gymnasium at the Navy Yard Clubhouse of the Madison Square Boys and Girls Club. For added flair, Brook Lopez and MarShon Brooks will be there to help him introduce the new court, which will be a replica of the Nets’ practice court, including the team’s oversize logos, and black and white color scheme.

“We can’t just take for granted that Brooklyn is going to support us just because we wear Brooklyn every night,” Yormark said, referring to the team’s jerseys. “We’ve got to do things that are significant, that have an impact on the lives of the people that make up Brooklyn.”

The court will be the first endeavor by Yormark’s foundation, but it is in line with other efforts the team has made since its move to Brooklyn was announced.

Actually, it's not the first endeavor by Yormark's foundation. It dumped--er, distributed--free tickets to the first boxing match last October.

Some skepticism

As I commented:

How much is Yormark contributing? What % of that is the renovation cost?

The Nets and Barclays have a history of claiming credit for refurbishing school playgrounds while furnishing only a fraction of the cost:
http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2011/09/nets-bring-new-playground-to-canarsie.html

And, of course, the Dodgers fit into Brooklyn by living in the neighborhoods and taking public transit.

Another reader commented:

$7000 upfront for season ticket holders who want to go to the playoffs. Those charity courts are expensive.

emergency cash loan

Up To $1500 Quick Loan Online. No Hassle. Fast Instant Approval. Withdraw Your Cash. Get Cash Fast Today!

Rating of emergency cash loan

Get Online Application at online payday loans.

As New York vies for marquee sports events, a good deal for the public or just good business for owners?

From a New York Times Sports section article today headlined New York Builds Momentum in Sports:

In the next few years, though, the New York metropolitan area will host numerous marquee events that will thrust it into the sports spotlight. This summer, the major league baseball All-Star Game will be played at Citi Field, followed next year by the first outdoor cold-weather Super Bowl, at MetLife Stadium. A few weeks later, basketball fans will head to Madison Square Garden to see the final rounds of the East Regional of the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament. By then, the N.B.A. will probably have decided whether the 2015 All-Star Game will be played at the Garden or at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Throw in the N.F.L. and N.B.A. drafts in Manhattan and the N.H.L. draft at Prudential Center in Newark, as well as annual events like the United States Open tennis tournament and the New York City Marathon, and New Yorkers will have a full slate of top-flight sports to attend.

The Barclays Center perspective

The article explains what's good business for the Brooklyn arena:

Brett Yormark, the chief executive of Barclays Center and the Nets, said that hosting boxing matches, college basketball games and other events helped put his arena on the map outside the city.

“We want to host events with national appeal,” he said. “It creates value for our naming rights partner, and it’s important to be seen nationally because boxers, artists and others will aspire to perform on our court and stage.”

In other words, it's all about the bottom line.

A good deal for the public?

The article equivocates:

For all of sports’ appeal, critics contend that stadiums and arenas rarely generate the economic benefits that their backers claim because cities, including New York, provide builders with hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks and other subsidies that could be used for other things, like hospitals and schools. Others argue that New York is already one of the most visited cities and does not need an All-Star Game, for instance, to boost tourism.

Consider a 9/7/10 article by the same reporter, headlined As Stadiums Vanish, Their Debt Lives On:

How municipalities acquire so much debt on buildings that have been torn down or are underused illustrates the excesses of publicly financed stadiums and the almost mystical sway professional sports teams have over politicians, voters and fans.

Rather than confront teams, they have often buckled when owners — usually threatening to move — have demanded that the public pay for new suites, parking or arenas and stadiums.

Or a 10/11/09 article by the same reporter, headlined In East Rutherford, N.J., New Football Stadium, but at Whose Cost?:

But critics remain unrepentant. George Zoffinger, then the authority’s chief executive, who opposed the deal, said that the authority might ultimately need to ask lawmakers in Trenton to help make its payment to East Rutherford.

“It’s a travesty that no one is focused on them building a $1.5 billion stadium and that they don’t pay any more in taxes,” he said. “At the end of the day, the authority is going to have to go back to the state for subsidies.”

Zoffinger said that while the teams liked to claim that they built their stadium with private funds, New Jersey taxpayers are on the hook for about $400 million in road improvements, a new rail link from Secaucus and more than $100 million to retire the debt on the old stadium after it is torn down.

[East Rutherford Mayor James] Cassella added that under the terms of the authority’s agreement with the teams, the Jets and the Giants can keep any money from stadium naming rights, parking and other revenue that is sometimes shared with local governments that subsidize sports complexes.

Ditto for the Barclays Center, but there's no authoritative local official to protest about a decision made by a larger political entity. And while the arena is not publicly funded through a bond issue, the nearly $300 million in direct subsidies, more than $100 million in free land, and other tax breaks/assistance add up to significant advantage.

emergency cash loan

Up To $1500 Quick Loan Online. No Hassle. Fast Instant Approval. Withdraw Your Cash. Get Cash Fast Today!

Rating of emergency cash loan

Get Online Application at online payday loans.

A history of Barclays Center giveaways: a year of free event tickets (yes) vs. a free suite for a year (not quite)

The Barclays Center got some positive publicity this past week for a giveaway, as in a Daily News article yesterday: She’s 1 in a million! Barclays Center celebrates its one-millionth guest:

Allison Barlow scored big at the Brooklyn Nets game Friday when she became Barclays Center’s 1 millionth customer — earning her two free tickets for every event there for a year.
...Jaws dropped, lights flashed and streamers exploded in the air as the modest mom passed through the turnstile for her second Nets game at the arena — leaving her husband and friends who accompanied her stunned.
...Barlow arrived at the arena around 7:30 p.m. — a 20-minute walk from her Park Slope home — and was promptly whisked away by Barclays owner Bruce Ratner.
...“All night long, people were saying congratulations,” she said. “Even before this happened, the center won me over. It’s great to see how Brooklyn it is.”

I suspect she was referring to the food, not the tax exemptions, financing scheme, public evasiveness, and Culture of Cheating.

Different promises and deceptions

The cost to give away two tickets to each event is surely acceptable, compared to the publicity value, especially if arena operators make it back on concessions.

Consider a previous promise that would have hit the bottom line, as explained in a 5/5/08 article in Crain's New York Business headlined Nets hold court on luxury suites:

Next week, the Nets will debut a prototype of their Frank Gehry-designed, $300,000-a-year Barclays Center corporate suites at a splashy party in their New York Times Building showroom.
To entice 185 of New York’s top CEOs to attend—and buy—the organization delivered a series of gifts over the past month, including a Tiffany key chain with a key, one of which will open a door to a free suite for the team’s inaugural season. 

Did arena operators ever announce a CEO who got a free suite? Nope. Surely they would have milked the publicity had it happened.

Consider how they milked the publicity of Jay-Z "buying" a suite--at least until it was revealed that he got it for free.

emergency cash loan

Up To $1500 Quick Loan Online. No Hassle. Fast Instant Approval. Withdraw Your Cash. Get Cash Fast Today!

Rating of emergency cash loan

Get Online Application at online payday loans.

Good Day NY synergy: Nets/arena CEO Brett Yormark's media pal Rosanna Scotto is his fiancee's sister (and Fresco by Scotto has space at arena)

When Fox 5 Good Day NY host Rosanna Scotto went over the top for Jay-Z and his arena partners in September 2011, well, I thought it was just giddy TV behavior.

Rosanna Scotto (l.) and Elaina Scotto

Maybe, but it sure didn't hurt that her sister Elaina was involved with Nets/arena CEO Brett Yormark.

Now they're engaged, the Post reported last week. (Elaina Scotto and Brett Yormark were apparently a couple before Rosanna's giddiness, given this February 2011 photo.)

And when Elaina Scotto popped up on a Good Day NY segment 9/27/12 (right) wearing a "Hello Brooklyn" Nets shirt and gushing about going to the Barclays Center to see Jay-Z, well, there was no disclosure about the connection.

The connection is not just personal, it's business ; the Scotto family also operates Fresco by Scotto at Barclays, apparently the only non-Brooklyn restaurant to have a space in "Brooklyn Taste."

Inside scoop

Such closeness pays dividends in the other direction, as well. On Saturday, 10/12/12, Scotto tweeted her enthusiasm about the Barbra Streisand concert:

I have the inside scoop on @barbrastreisand concert. Slam dunkfor #barclayscenter @brettyormark
— Rosanna Scotto (@rosannascotto) October 12, 2012

The connection, business and personal

In Hamptons magazine, Family Bonding with the Scottos, 6/15/12, Elaina Scotto was queried:

What are some of the new projects Fresco by Scotto is launching? 
ES: We have pop-up Frescos at Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. We’re associated with New York Water Taxi and Manhattan by Sail to cater all boating events. And did I mention all those lunch boxes with Gray Line bus tours? Our newest deal is with Live Nation to cater backstage at all concert venues in the tri-state area, but what we are really looking forward to is going back to our roots in Brooklyn. Thanks to the special man in my life, Brett Yormark, we will have a strong presence at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Here's some video of the arena establishment; the potato and zucchini chips look good, though they do cost $9.75.

Yormark has supplied Rosanna Scotto with Nets gear for Spike Lee and has appeared other times on Good Day New York.

The New York Post's Page Six reported last Friday, 1/11/13:

Congrats to Elaina Scotto of the Fresco restaurant family, and Brett Yormark, CEO of the Brooklyn Nets and the Barclays Center. Yormark popped the question last month with a 6-carat diamond ring. Elaina — daughter of former Brooklyn longshoremen’s union boss Tony Scotto — said yes. “We’re thrilled,” said Elaina’s sister Rosanna, who co-hosts “Good Day New York” on Fox 5. Both have two kids from previous marriages. “It’s ‘The Brady Bunch 2.0,’ ” Rosanna joked. “They’ll always be entertained and never have a bad meal.”

(By the way, one celebrity 6-carat ring cost $130,000.)

Family history

For the record, "former Brooklyn longshoremen’s union boss" is a limited description, like, say, describing Bruce Ratner as a "philanthropist."

As noted in a New York Times profile 11/16/79 and in Wikipedia, Anthony Scotto, who grew up in Red Hook, in 1957 married Marion Anastasio, whose father was big in the Anastasia crime family and whose uncle Albert Anastasia was boss, later to lead the Gambino crime family.

Scotto, head of the longshoreman's local, raised big bucks for local elected officials and gained significant political power. Rumors of organized crime ties dogged him and his wife;  at a state legislative committee hearing, he and his wife invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer a question about such ties. In 1979, he was indicted on 33 federal bribery and racketeering charges.

Scotto was convicted on most charges, but, thanks in part to numerous letters from prominent people urging leniency, got only five years in prison (the max was 20), and left in 1984 after 39 months.

GangLand columnist Jerry Capeci wrote 10/12/09 in the Huffington Post:

Scotto not only was [racketeer Todo] Anastasio's superior -- both in the mob and the ILA. He was also a powerful political operative and Democratic fundraiser. He endorsed former Attorney General Robert Kennedy for the Senate and was a candidate for Secretary of Labor in the Carter Administration. Then-New York Governor Hugh Carey and two former New York City Mayors were character witnesses for him at his trial.
After his release from prison in 1984, however, Scotto -- who can often be seen at Fresco by Scotto, the upscale East Side eatery his family owns -- hasn't had a single hassle with the law. The feds tell Gang Land that just like John (Junior) Gotti, he's still a Gambino wiseguy. But that kind of talk is cheap.

For years, Rosanna Scotto, daughter of a one-time gangster, shared an anchor slot with Greg Kelly, son of the New York City Police Commissioner. As Leonard Ratner might say, "What a country!"

emergency cash loan

Up To $1500 Quick Loan Online. No Hassle. Fast Instant Approval. Withdraw Your Cash. Get Cash Fast Today!

Rating of emergency cash loan

Get Online Application at online payday loans.

NYC "under new management"? The NBA pendulum swing, for the Nets and beyond

When the Brooklyn Nets beat the New York Knicks last month in their first game, Jay-Z's boast generated more than 10,000 re-tweets:

The city is under new management.
— Mr. Carter (@S_C_) November 27, 2012

Borough President Marty Markowitz crowed:

Brooklyn Nets are "Kings" of NYC...How sweet it is!
— Marty Markowitz (@MartyMarkowitz) November 27, 2012

The Nets had a great November but a lousy December, losing twice to their crosstown rival (whom Markowitz likes to call the "Manhattan Knicks"). Neither Jay-Z nor Markowitz, fair-weather supporters apparently, have seen fit to tweet about that.

Listening to Yormark

Nets/arena CEO Brett Yormark, however, has had to ride the storm.

Start believing brooklyn. You have a team to be proud of. Congrats. More to come.
— Brett Yormark (@brettyormark) November 27, 2012

When the Knicks beat the Nets twice, and the team slide continued, Yormark's been optimistic and defensive (and addressing "Nets fans" rather than "Brooklyn"):

We have to get better and we will. Stay strong nets fans.
— Brett Yormark (@brettyormark) December 20, 2012

After yesterday's nationally televised loss to the Boston Celtics (which included malfunctioning escalators and a microphone for the national anthem, apparently), he tweeted:

Nets fans deserved better today. The entire organization needs to work harder to find the solution. We will get there.
— Brett Yormark (@brettyormark) December 25, 2012

The team's slide

The Times reported 12/22/12:

After an 11-4 start that earned Avery Johnson recognition as coach of the month for November, the Nets have gone 2-8 in December. The Nets have steadily stumbled toward mediocrity, poor play highlighted by blown leads, a declining defense and Deron Williams’s comments about the team’s offense.

Yesterday, ESPN wrote:

One can only wonder what owner Mikhail Prokhorov is thinking, as a man who spent $330 million for a team that sits only a game over .500 a third of the way through the season. It seemed like Nets GM Billy King handed Johnson a roster capable of making it all the way to the Eastern Conference finals if everything fell right.

The pendulum

When the Knicks point guard phenomenon Jeremy Lin leave over the summer, there was a huge backlash, and some fans converted to the Nets.

The Knicks, despite a loss yesterday in L.A., have played surprisingly well, so their performance has helped them retain fans.

Some saw point guard Raymond Felton as a better, steadier solution than the higher-priced Lin. Then again, Lin has since stepped up in Houston, and Capital New York's Howard Megdal thinks the comparison deserves another look.

As for the Nets, they may indeed do better--they play some winnable games starting tonight.

But even so, was the city really "under new management"? Were the Nets "Kings" of New York? (Are the Knicks, even now?) Once they started losing, did the Nets' royal status change?

Remember, these are sports entertainment corporations first, however much they're presented as embodiments of civic identity or virtue. Consider this not-quite-tribute:

If nothing else, Brett Yormark's grandstanding never takes holidays or weekends off. #Nets
— Ian O'Connor (@Ian_OConnor) December 25, 2012

emergency cash loan

Up To $1500 Quick Loan Online. No Hassle. Fast Instant Approval. Withdraw Your Cash. Get Cash Fast Today!

Rating of emergency cash loan

Get Online Application at online payday loans.

JetBlue announces it is Official Domestic Airline of Barclays Center; contest next month

A press release yesterday: JetBlue Airways Scores Big with New York's Newest Venue: Signs on as the Official Domestic Airline of Barclays Center:

NEW YORK, Dec. 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- JetBlue Airways (Nasdaq: JBLU), New York's Hometown Airline™, today proudly announces its status as the Official Domestic Airline of the brand new Barclays Center in Brooklyn, a major sports and entertainment venue showcasing an extensive variety of events, including premier concerts, major professional boxing cards, top college basketball, family shows, and the Brooklyn Nets.
On Thursday, Dec. 20 the airline will launch the partnership with Barclays Center Day from 7:30 a.m. to 11 a.m., post-security at its world-class home at John F.Kennedy International Airport's (JFK) Terminal 5, complete with a branded SportPros court where ticketed customers will have the opportunity to shoot hoops for great prizes including flight giveaways and Nets game tickets. The Brooklyn Nets dance team, Brooklynettes, will be onsite to entertain.
"Barclays Center represents renewal and innovation in New York, much like JetBlue was introduced over a decade ago," said Marty St. George , senior vice president of marketing and commercial strategy. "We're very happy to be part of this new endeavor, which promises to delight and entertain fans for many years to come. As the largest domestic carrier at JFK, with our new support center here in Long Island City, we're New York's Hometown Airline and, like the Barclays Center, will maintain our focus on top notch customer service, value and entertainment. The partnership is a perfect fit!"
"JetBlue is a great New York City-based airline, which offers the same commitment to top customer service and innovation as Barclays Center," Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark said. "We are looking forward to welcoming JetBlue passengers to Barclays Center for world-class sports and entertainment."
Each Thursday during the month of January, 2013, Barclays Center will host a "Bound for Brooklyn" sweepstakes, presented by JetBlue. Customers can visit Barclays Center's Facebook page at facebook.com/barclayscenter and enter for the chance to win a pair of round trip JetBlue tickets to or from New York, plus a pair of tickets to an event at Barclays Center. Five winners will be selected every Thursday for a total of 25 winners.
JetBlue's partnership with Barclays Center, located in the heart of Brooklyn and designed by the award-winning architectural firms Ellerbe Becket and SHoP Architects, includes exclusive digital street-to-seat signage for all events, courtside television-visible signage and baseline signage during Brooklyn Nets home games, and arena activation rights. Brooklyn's own JAY Z launched Barclays Center's inaugural season with eight sold out shows. The arena's BrooklynTaste™ culinary program, customer service, outstanding sightlines, easy accessibility, 101 luxury suites, four bars/lounges, three clubs and the newest location of the 40/40 CLUB & Restaurant by American Express, all guarantee that an event at Barclays Center is destined to be a memorable one.
JetBlue is the largest domestic airline at JFK, operating more than 150 nonstop flights daily to 56 destinations throughout the United States, the Caribbean and Latin America. The customer service friendly airline carried more than two million travelers from the airport last year to its many international destinations including: Barbados; Colombia; Costa Rica; Dominican Republic;Jamaica; Mexico; Saint Lucia; St. Maarten; and Turks and Caicos - all of which will soon enjoy the seamless experience of arriving into the new international arrivals terminal extension.

emergency cash loan

Up To $1500 Quick Loan Online. No Hassle. Fast Instant Approval. Withdraw Your Cash. Get Cash Fast Today!

Rating of emergency cash loan

Get Online Application at online payday loans.

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.

emergency cash loan

Up To $1500 Quick Loan Online. No Hassle. Fast Instant Approval. Withdraw Your Cash. Get Cash Fast Today!

Rating of emergency cash loan

Get Online Application at online payday loans.

The BrooklyKnight mascot superhero introduced: a cartoon defender of "Brooklyn" when the borough needs real ones

Photo via http://thescore.tumblr.com/

I'll have more later on the Brooklyn Nets debut last night, but first, a few words about The Brooklyn Knight or, as he's apparently known, The BrooklyKnight, the Nets' new mascot. He's apparently already making people miss the comparatively real predecessor, Sly Fox.

"I think we can all agree that everything was a success tonight with the notable exception of the mascot," tweeted Daily News beat writer Stefan Bondy. "For what it's worth: it's really, really, really nice that the Nets' major weakness right now is that their mascot sucks," commented Devin Kharpertian of The Brooklyn Game.

"The Brooklyn Knight looks like a building Bruce Ratner would use eminent domain on," he added, prompting a response: "he looks like a cheap, cheap WWE character."

He does, and it was particularly notable that a cartoon superhero was claimed for Brooklyn at a time when the borough very much needs mundane, shoulder-to-the wheel help (and money).

Announcer David Diamante, with a background announcing boxing matches and DJing at strip clubs, read the introduction--clearly written before Hurricane Sandy--with no recognition of potential ironies.



"And now, Nets fans, look to the sky," Diamante declared portentously. "It's time, descending from the rafters, after so long, the wait is finally over. The power within this hallowed ground can be contained no longer. Tonight, at long last, to this Brooklyn, your Brooklyn, to this arena, your arena, to this team, your team, your superhero is here. Born from the beating heart of your Brooklyn. Forged from the steel and stone as your battleground, he's your hunger for a team to call your own. He's your passion given form. Here, to defend Brooklyn, he's the BrooklyKnight."

I don't think any of that is "ours" except in the sense of geography.

(And yes, there's a porn star known as "Brooklyn Night." Her credits include some rather creatively named films.)

What sports can do

Daily News columnist Mike Lupica wrote:

We always want to make the games part of the relief effort, as if they’re being played for the victims. They’re not. They never have been and never will be. Of course there have been bad times before this when we all wanted to buy into the romantic conceit that our teams and our athletes can somehow make us feel that we’re all in something together. We’re not. Even at their best, they’re just games.
...The Knicks didn’t win one for New York on Friday night because they made a lot of 3’s and beat the Heat in a game that the Heat seemed completely disinterested in playing, and not just Dwyane Wade. The Giants won’t be winning one for the Jersey Shore today and the Nets aren’t winning one for Staten Island.
...You want to remember a magnificent relief effort in New York City, remember the one we saw at Shea Stadium in September of 2001, when the Mets and their manager Bobby Valentine turned the place into an emergency clearing house for goods and volunteers and even offered first responders from out of town a place to rest for a while.

The promotion

An announcement, via comicbook.com:

“Brooklyn now has a new Super Hero to call its own,” said Brett Yormark, CEO of the Brooklyn Nets and Barclays Center. “BrooklyKnight is a superior combination of strength, power, and confidence — sounds just like Brooklyn to me.”
“Marvel Entertainment has outdone itself with its newest Super Hero creation for the Brooklyn Nets,” Brooklyn Nets Chairman Christophe Charlier said. “We are honored to have collaborated with the company of the world’s mightiest Super Heroes.”
“As a Brooklynite and a hardcore hoops fan, for me to get the opportunity to help create a Super Hero for my home borough’s new team was a dream come true,” said Axel Alonso, Editor in Chief, Marvel Entertainment. “Working with the Nets staff, we have created a team Super Hero that is unlike anything the NBA has ever seen; a timeless character who can stand shoulder to shoulder with icons like Spider-Man, Captain America, Wolverine, and Thor. Let’s go, Nets!”
A comic book featuring the character–written by Jason Aaron and drawn by Mike Deodato–was given away at the game. The cover can be seen above and sample pages below. Fans attending the game November 11 against the Orlando Magic will receive a trading card featuring the character from Marvel Custom Solutions.
“Forged from the blood, sweat and tears of Brooklyn itself — always ready to defend his home and defeat any challenger — all hail the BrooklyKnight!” exclaimed Bill Rosemann, Editor, Marvel Custom Solutions. “When Nets fans meet their guardian, they will immediately know that the House of Ideas has once again unleashed a hero who will soon be known all over the world for his nobility, grit, and strength. Brooklyn, your champion is here!”

emergency cash loan

Up To $1500 Quick Loan Online. No Hassle. Fast Instant Approval. Withdraw Your Cash. Get Cash Fast Today!

Rating of emergency cash loan

Get Online Application at online payday loans.