« The Week The Neighborhood Saw In the Footprints | Main | Arena block could take 19 years, as ESDC grants seven-year extension, enabling FCR's plan to recruit Chinese investors under EB-5 program »
December 6, 2010
On the web, a ‘Nyet’ gain for Prokhorov
The Brooklyn Paper
by Gary Buiso
Who says there’s no “I” in team?
Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov put a cyber-stamp on his New Jersey Nets this week, launching a “team” website in his native tongue — but the site also heavily promotes the owner and his business ventures back in the Motherland.
...The fledgling website offers articles, interviews, schedule photos and video and ticket information. It does not reveal the current NBA standings, where the Nets are 6–15, good enough for the third-worst record in the league.
The current on-court struggles follow last season’s debacle, when the Nets lost a franchise high 70 games — but on the Russian-language website, the Nets are a league leader (albeit as one of the “most-socially savvy teams” in culling new fans through Facebook and Twitter).
Not these "fans," apparently.
In the borough’s southern Brooklyn Russian enclaves, basketball fans said the website is hardly a slam-dunk.
“I love basketball, but I won’t go on the site just because the team owner is Russian,” said Raisa Chernina, a Sheepshead Bay resident who heads the Be Proud Foundation, a Russian-American advocacy group.
...And a Russian-language website is not something Brooklyn’s Russians immigrants even need, said Lena Makhnin, executive director of Brighton Beach Business Improvement District.
NoLandGrab: See it for yourself — NetsRussia.com.
Posted by eric at December 6, 2010 8:51 AM