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July 15, 2008
Actually, it's 18.6% About Basketball...
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
DDDB ran Bruce Ratner's "it's 100% about basketball" claim through the bee-ess-o-meter, and arrived at a different tabulation.
Which leads one to ponder the fact that actually, according to the KPMG report on the economics of Atlantic Yards back in December, 2006, the Arena will only be used 41 times a year for the Nets, with another 179 "non-NBA activities." What might those activities be? Well, looking at this summer's fare in another 20,000 seat arena, the Verizon Center in DC, that could include: WWE presents Monday Night RAW LIVE ("featuring Batista, John Cena, CM Punk, Rey Mysterio, Triple H, Edge and More"); Pop Tarts Presents American Idols Live – 2008 Tour; Women of Faith; and George Michael's first North American tour in 17 years.
That means in actuality, the Nets Arena is approximately 18% about basketball, and 82% about....other stuff. But when you're asking for hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies, it's probably not quite so effective to say that most of the time you'll be featuring Pop Tarts, George Michaels and really big guys in tights....
NoLandGrab: NLG's 10-year-old nephew would actually be okay with it being "100% about the wrestling."
Posted by eric at July 15, 2008 9:52 AM