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Meet Barclays Center General Manager John Sparks, just for a bit

A key Barclays Center figure, General Manager John Sparks, made brief appearances at two meetings (morning and evening) May 22 regarding the Barclays Center Transportation Demand Management (TDM) plan.

In both cases, he received the exact same introduction by Forest City Ratner executive Jane Marshall, reading from a prepared script.



"We engaged with our new colleagues, the arena operators, to develop plans for running the building," Marshall said. "To that end, I want to introduce John Sparks, the general manager of the Barclays Center. As such, he runs the building, and everybody reports to him. Going forward, as John builds his team and we open the arena, there will be more interaction with arena operations and the community, elected officials, and agencies. We want you to meet him. He cannot stay for the entire presentation today, but we thought it was important to put a face to the name.

Enter Sparks

Photo and set by Tracy Collins
Sparks, in his brief remarks, said he'd been attached to the project for about a year previously operated the arena in San Antonio and other sports facilities, and had a 20-year career in the Navy.

"The Barclays Center, as we formulate our team, our goal is pretty simple," he said. "Our goal is pretty simple, we want to interact with the community, we want to be responsive to the community's needs, we want to be good partners and good neighbors."

Well, sure. They don't want to alienate the community. They also want to achieve their primary goals, which is to pack the building with events, provide a good experience for paying customers, and earn a profit.

In the future, perhaps, Sparks will be able to stay for full meetings.



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