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Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park infographics: what's built/what's coming/what's missing, who's responsible, + project FAQ/timeline (pinned post)

New Nets website, The Brooklyn Game, launches, affiliated with YES Network; the start of a "new community and media platform for Brooklyn"?

Some competition for NetsDaily. A press release:
MAJOR NEW BROOKLYN NETS WEBSITE -- THEBROOKLYNGAME.COM -- LAUNCHES THIS WEEK
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Will act as the YES Network’s exclusive web partner for Nets content
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TheBrooklynGame.com takes over content and staff from the popular site, NetsAreScorching.com

BROOKLYN, U.S.A. -- Brooklyn has a world-class professional basketball team, and now the major independent website to cover it. The Brooklyn Game, a new digital media platform dedicated to the Brooklyn Nets, provides fans & readers breaking news, expert analysis, fan commentary, community tools, photo galleries, and more.

TheBrooklynGame.com will be the exclusive web partner for Nets content of the YES Network, the official broadcaster of the Brooklyn Nets. In addition to the new content, the site has absorbed the articles and key staff of NetsAreScorching.com, a popular site that covered the New Jersey Nets since 2009.

YES will use TheBrooklynGame.com content on YESNetwork.com and will promote the TheBrooklynGame.com on air and on YESNetwork.com.

The managing editor of the site is Devin Kharpertian, who last year ran NetsAreScorching.com. Several contributors from that site will contribute to The Brooklyn Game.

The Brooklyn Game was launched by Steven Waldman, the former founder and CEO of the award-winning site Beliefnet.com and former Senior Advisor to the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, along with an all- star collection of Brooklyn-based editors including Larry Hackett, the editor of People magazine, Peggy Northrop, the former editor of Reader's Digest, and Michael Grossman, former Editor-at-large of Time, Inc.

“Brooklyn deserves a great home team, and a home team deserves great coverage,” said Waldman. “And fans need an independent, home-grown place where they argue, boast, trash-talk, and discuss with each other.”

"I've been obsessed with this franchise my entire life, and already this is the most interesting year they've had," Kharpertian said. "It's a truly unique moment. I'm excited to provide comprehensive and lively coverage of the franchise and its cultural impact."

“We wanted to partner with The Brooklyn Game because Devin’s analysis is among the best we’ve seen, and Steven’s background in new media ensures that this is going to be a high-quality site,” says Kevin Sullivan, Director, New Media at YES, which also airs the New York Yankees.

“As the Nets begin their inaugural season in Brooklyn, the timing is perfect to connectbring TheBrooklynGame.com withinto the YES digital media family and our where it will thrive alongside our many established brands and talents,” said Michael Spirito, Vice President, Business Development and Digital Media, YES Network.

The Brooklyn Game is part of a larger effort by Waldman and others to create an ambitious new community and media platform for Brooklyn.

The site will also publish a Facebook page and a Twitter feed with the handle @TheBKGame.
What's next?

Surely Brooklyn could use a "new community and media platform." (I've discussed this very casually with Waldman, whose work I respect.) I have to wonder, though, if the Nets are the pathway into that.

The Brooklyn Game has already done some good work. But let's see if their comprehensive coverage actually critiques Nets business practices--say, those $15 tickets. Will the YES Network be OK with that?

An Atlantic Yards connection

Interesting fact: a member of the web site's "Advisory Board and Partners" is attorney David Goldberg, who wrote the amicus brief in the 2005 Kelo v. New London eminent domain case on behalf of three Atlantic Yards supporters: Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development (BUILD), Rev. Herbert Daughtry, and The New York City and Vicinity Carpenters Labor-Management Corporation, supporting the city of New London.

The brief made the not-unreasonable point that eminent domain can result not simply in replacing lower-income residents with higher-income ones, but in increasing density to accommodate a much larger number of people, as with Atlantic Yards.

Then again, such promises also can be used to usher in sweetheart deals. The benefits estimated in the brief--10,000 office jobs, 15,000 construction jobs, etc.--are no longer viable. Meanwhile, BUILD is going out of business, and the Carpenters have had a few ethical difficulties.

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