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August 5, 2011
Brooklyn Islanders May be Closer to Reality
Forbes.com
by Tom Van Riper
...in a fantasy land where arena design, seating capacity and awful sightlines don't matter. More Brooklyn Islanders! mania.
Back in 1999, as the local cable sports landscape was beginning its metamorphosis into team owned stations like the Yankees’ YES Network, the Islanders inked an extension with Cablevision all the way through the 2030-31 season, for rights fees that escalate from roughly $14 million a year initially to a reported $36 million by the last year of the deal. The contract is the Islanders’ most valuable asset, one they’re unlikely to duplicate in another market.
“Basically, you can’t leave the market,” says sports business consultant Marc Ganis. So how do you leave your outdated facility behind without leaving the market and your sweet television deal? Join Mikhail Prokhorov and his NBA Nets at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
Related nonsense coverage...
WNYC, Could Brooklyn's Barclays Center Be Future Home for the New York Islanders?
“It actually gives the Barclays Center another avenue for revenue, growth and opportunity, and also helps them fill an additional 41 days on their calendar each and every year,” he said.
However, McDonnell said that putting a hockey rink in Brooklyn does involve some risk.
“The game is a tough product to push these days, especially in New York, where sports fans are over-saturated,” he said.
The Real Deal, Barclays Center could score a hockey team
Now Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark said he would be open to "explore hockey opportunities." With a regulation-size hockey rink the stadium's seating capacity would be reduced to just 14,500 people for hockey games, by far the smallest in the National Hockey League.
Finally, a dollop of sanity...
F**ked in Park Slope, BARCLAYS CENTER BULLSHIT: TRAFFIC & HOCKEY
And just in case you cared, the official word was handed down that the Barclays Center will be housing an ice-rink capable of professional hockey team. Once again scraping the bottom of the barrel, who have they found that might be interested? The New York Islanders. ACCORDING TO ESPN, the teams lease at the Nassau Colesium runs out in 2015 and the team wants a new stadium. This is all speculation of course. Once the Islanders realize it takes 4 hours to get in and out of downtown Brooklyn, they'll probably run screaming.
For all the rest of us who don't care about shitty basketball teams or shitty hockey teams, we are left with shitty traffic... FOREVER.
Posted by eric at August 5, 2011 11:25 AM