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Today's big story: the Barclays Center's "signature scent"

Apparently the Barclays Center, like some other sports venues, mists a "signature scent" (citrus-y, clean, depending on whom you asked)  to enhance the visitor experience, as DNAinfo reports in a story that got picked up widely, including by Deadspin, The Atlantic Wire, and Racked (where a commenter says it gets pumped outside the Calvin Klein VIP entrance).

While Leslie Albrecht's article quotes a sports reporter at SNYNets as saying, "It's a brand-new building. They've spent over a billion dollars. [The scent] kind of goes along with the whole over-the-top nature of the building," Ball Don't Lie's Kelly Dwyer is more skeptical:
The Nets have declined comment on the fragrance, and for good reason ā€“ even the best of press release mavens would have a hard time accurately describing why, exactly, one would decide to pay to have scented air pumped into Barclays Center, much less describing the scent in un-mockable terms and explaining why itā€™s fit for the teamā€™s arena.
...No, the Barclays Center should naturally smell like the high end artisanal pretzel rolls and craft brews it offers its patrons, and not some imperceptible, ā€œcitrusā€ (which is a descriptive word all of us go for when we have no idea what a certain wine, cigar, or perfume smells like) odor that the Nets are paying for on top of the four years and $89 million theyā€™ll pay Joe Johnson between last summer and 2016.
Itā€™s their arena, their money, and their ventilation options. Weā€™re just wondering why this ownership group even bothers, for just a first round team.
Well, that's likely because the arena has many more events than Nets games.

Neil deMause of Field of Schemes writes:
Itā€™s only fitting that the Nets are resorting to this, given that they were among the first franchises [in 1997]  to pipe in fake crowd noise to make it sound like fans were actually cheering.
We'll see if any other story about the Barclays Center--like its "signature noise leakage" and consequent fine--gets such play.

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