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Ratner gets sports magazine to agree that latest version of arena may be country's best

The arena promotion continues. SportsPro Magazine, in its July 2011 The Next special report on stadiums & venues, declares the Barclays Center one of the top ten over the next decade.
“I honestly believe,” says New Jersey Nets minority owner Bruce Ratner, “that in America we do sometimes build an arena with some semblance of architectural taste, and architecturally it’s great.”
Few would disagree with such an appraisal of the forthcoming Barclays Center, future
home of the Brooklyn Nets. Its designers at the award-winning SHoP architecture firm have presented what might be the most ambitious and aesthetically pleasing indoor arena ever constructed in the United States. Their assured touch, says Ratner, is apparent “in and out” of the venue.
Except that's what Ratner would have said about the original design by Frank Gehry, whom he once said "is for me an idol."

As noted, the arena itself is by Ellerbe Becket, and thus a cousin to that firm's many NBA arenas, such as the Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The "facade" is by SHoP.

The Brooklyn factor


The article continues:
“The other thing is the Brooklyn factor,” Ratner declares. “Brooklyn is like no other place on earth.” Much will be made of the return of a major league sports team to Brooklyn for the first time since the heartbreaking flight of the Dodgers to LA in 1957.
Well, the publication is making it for Ratner.

Filling a niche

It is true, as the article points out, that the arena will fill a niche, as the city itself--though not the metropolitan area, with arenas in Long Island and Newark--lacks a venue to compete with Madison Square Garden.

And that will make it the subject of even more coverage.

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