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September 13, 2012
Inside the New Home of the Brooklyn Nets
19,000 seat arena and a re-branded team, minority owner Jay-Z has big plans to take on the dominant Madison Square Garden.
The Hollywood Reporter
by Jordan Zakarin
Getting celebrities to sit courtside is a high-value target for any NBA franchise, and while Jay-Z and Beyonce will go a long way, the Nets will have to do better than just Ellen Pompeo and MTV's Sway (who have bought season tickets) if they're going to compete with Madison Square Garden -- which, for decades, has been the city's only viable spot for massive concerts and events. MSG also has the advantage of being the home of the Knicks and the WNBA's Liberty as well as the NHL's Rangers -- and those franchises drove the Garden's profits to $322 million last quarter.
"Personally, I don't think the Garden has any reason to consider Barclays as a serious competitor mainly because of the No. 1 rule in New York City real estate: location, location, location," Alan Hahn, who covered the NBA for Newsday and now is an on-air analyst for MSG's TV network, told The Hollywood Reporter. "The Garden is in mid-town Manhattan, at the heart of New York City. It's also the Garden, an icon, a place with rich history and tradition."
NoLandGrab: Yeah, but does the Garden have a herringbone floor? Huh? Huh?
Posted by eric at September 13, 2012 11:29 AM