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October 24, 2009
Weekend Words of Wisdom From the Atlantic Yards Report
Atlantic Yards Report
OK, when prospective Nets owner--and Russia's richest man--Mikhail Prokhorov spent $18,760 on lunch ($15,007.87, according to the New York Post, plus a 25% tip), how painful was it?
Not very.
The spending represents exactly 0.00019747368421052633% of his $9.5 billion net worth.
To put that in perspective, a garden-variety mogul worth $100 million who wanted to spend the exact same percentage would only have $197.47 for a meal.
A millionaire couldn't even afford a Happy Meal, with only $1.97 to spend.
The average Brooklynite, which surely includes a broad spectrum of people, has a household net worth of $398,183. That would leave 79 cents to spend, enough for a candy bar.
That average figure is surely skewed by homeowners and others, so I bet the median net worth--with equal numbers of people on each side of the figure--is much lower, leaving that person able to buy, say, an individual Peppermint Patty.
What is it Fitzgerald once said? The rich are different.
And it wasn't Hemingway, but Mary Column, who riposted, The rich have more money.
That's for sure.
After Brett Yormark double-pinky-sweared they'd never play in the Newark, the Nets have agreed to play in Newark.
Well, Nets CEO Brett Yormark has made it official, issuing a statement yesterday, according to the Star-Ledger:
“After the master closing for our Brooklyn transaction this fall,” Yormark said in a statement, “we may consider an agreement to play our home games at the Prudential Center through the time we move to our new home in Brooklyn in the 2011-12 NBA season."
In other words, it's all negotiable, as I've written before.
...
But even if the New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority and the operators of The Rock--the Devils and AEG-come to an agreement, they have to convince local legislators, and several prominent ones are wary, according to The Record's John Brennan.
As State Senate President Richard Codey pointed out, if the Nets move to Newark only briefly then the bargain doesn't look too good:
“What everyone is forgetting is that the Nets, themselves, determine their fate,” Codey said. “We’ll find out in a month or so if they’re going to get an arena in Brooklyn. If not, they might go anywhere — St. Louis, Kansas City, Seattle? And the deal doesn’t work for the Devils unless they have the Nets [longterm].”
So, add another endgame to the endgame. If the Brooklyn project moves ahead, Yormark and the Nets likely would want Newark as an interim home.
If the Brooklyn move dies, then the Nets are in play, with Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov (likely) off the scene, and the team's future--even for the 2010-11 season--unclear.
...
Maybe Newark boosters are trying to figure out how--longshot--they could get Prokhorov to stick with the purchase--despite promises the deal's on only with the move--even if the Brooklyn move dies.
Though Newark ain't NYC, the idea is not without logic, or so I speculate. Prokhorov has $9.5 billion, so much that he could lose tens of a millions of dollars a year with no pain. The scarce commodity is an NBA team, wherever it's located.
A footnote on Brett Yormark's favorite interviewer, Alexis Glick
In case you're wondering about Alexis Glick, the Fox Business News host who so enthusiastically interviews Nets CEO Brett Yormark, well, the New York Observer reports, in an article headlined In Recession, Money Honeys Get Company From Grumpy Old Dudes:
WHEN MS. [Sandra] SMITH started at FBN two years ago, she was part of a crowded class of up-and-coming go-getters (Alexis Glick, Jenna Lee, Cody Willard, Nicole Petallides, Connell McShane and on and on) who were all of a type. This crowd, predominantly female, was full of fresh-faced, forward-looking optimism, and seemingly engineered by FBN chief Roger Ailes to ride effortlessly from one market high to the next and look damn good doing it
Posted by steve at October 24, 2009 9:37 AM