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January 18, 2007
Nets banking on Brits
20-year deal would name arena for financial powerhouse Barclays
NY Daily News By Jotham Sederstrom
In what could become one of the priciest naming-rights deals ever for a sports venue, a London-based banking giant has agreed to fork over millions to stamp its name on a yet-to-be-built basketball arena for the Brooklyn Nets.
Barclays Bank has agreed to a 20-year, nine-digit deal with the Forest City Ratner-owned Nets to call the arena the Barclays Center, sources said.
Officials from both sides - including Nets investor Jay-Z, NBA Commissioner David Stern and project architect Frank Gehry - are set to meet today at the Brooklyn Museum.
...
Sports economist Andrew Zimbalist predicted profits, which could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars, would help pay for the construction of the Gehry-designed arena."Typically what happens is that the money would be used to pay off the debt," said Zimbalist, formerly a paid consultant for Forest City Ratner. "I suspect [Ratner] would do the same."
Posted by lumi at January 18, 2007 9:31 AM