Monetizing the arena plaza and transit entrance: new canvas for advertising, never forecasted (nor, apparently, disallowed)

There's something quite telling about the image at right, taken last month.

It shows three layers of commercial signage--not one, as originally indicated--associated with the arena and transit entrance. (And it leaves out the advertising inside the transit entrance.)

It's a reminder that the an arena named for a sponsor, and a plaza named for a sponsor, are above all organisms for delivering revenue.

Before the oculus

Let's recap. The bright digital signage in the oculus--though at times on the fritz overnight, interfering with neighbors' sleep--is, relatively speaking, modest compared to what was once--shockingly--proposed, when the arena was supposed to be wrapped in four tours, notably the flagship "Miss Brooklyn" looming from the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues.

Massive illuminated signage on the Urban Room, 150-feet high and 75-feet wide, could have made the Atlantic-Flatbush intersection a mini-Times Square. "Ad-nauseum!" proclaimed the Brooklyn Paper in its 12/9/06 issue.

But there was no Urban Room to serve as entryway to the arena and the tower. Instead, we got the temporary-turning-permanent- plaza and the wrapround signage in the oculus, produced by SHoP, the buzzy architecture firm that wrapped a pedestrian replacement arena anew.

Downplaying what was coming

That oculus signage, indeed, was telegraphed, for example in the misleadingly mild image below, from a December 2010 state Technical Analysis of an extended project buildout.

Why do I call it misleadingly mild? Because it leaves out two other opportunities for advertising and messaging: the glass entrance area, plus the walls of the transit entrance. (It also leaves out the opportunity to put advertising inside the transit entrance--or, for a while, a quote purportedly from Angela Davis.)

Let's note that some form of messaging has long been used at the glass entrance area: first, there was static signage--see "The Puck Drops in October". Last year, arena operators adopted a (potentially very bright) LED wall.

The transit entrance

But let's take a look at that transit entrance, currently wrapped, at both ends, by ads for the real estate brokerage CBRE.

No advertising was predicted in the 2010 image above--indeed, the walls of that transit entrance were supposed to be clad in pre-rusted metal, as with the arena, and the upper wraparound "rim" of the transit entrance.

Instead, the walls were made of glass and, as shown in the 2016 Google Street View image below, without advertising.

I believe the advertising started in the last few years. I can't pin down the date, but, for example, Google Street View, as of 2018, still showed the glass. 

The bottom line, apparently, is that what is not explicitly banned is permitted--remember the Barclays name/logo on the arena roof? And that arena operators will do their best to keep figuring out ways to raise revenue.