The Times assesses Nets fandom, as de Blasio channels Markowitz, and team brass aim beyond NYC

Let's note a few things from  the lead story in New York Times Sports section yesterday, The Nets Had a Chance to Win Over New York. Now, They’ll Try Again., with the subheading, "Viewed by some as gentrifiers, the Nets finally may have the starpower to win a championship and loosen the grip the city’s other N.B.A. team has on the region."

The Nets' abortive title run last June generated a very Marty Markowitzian quote from the mayor to writer Sopan Deb:

“I really feel like this is the final act in the renaissance of Brooklyn and giving Brooklyn its rightful place in the world, and that has tremendous importance for the city going forward,” Mayor Bill de Blasio, a longtime Brooklyn resident before his 2014 inauguration, said in an interview before Game 3 of the semifinals series, when the Nets were up 2-0 and a championship run seemed inevitable.

But the Nets are after something bigger:

“We don’t want to be just the most popular N.B.A. team in New York City,” John Abbamondi, the chief executive of the Nets, said in an interview at Barclays before that Game 7. “We want to be a global sporting icon on the level of a Real Madrid of Barcelona. That’s our aspiration.”

That's not unreasonable, and should be remembered as the Nets extend sponsorships and digital partnerships, such as the recent Webull deal for the uniform patch and more, reportedly $30 million a year.

It's possible that, even if the Nets' attempt to overtake the New York Knicks in the city/region doesn't soon come to fruition, the combination of star power (Kevin Durant, James Harden, maybe even the belatedly vaccinated Kyrie Irving), a winning record, social media, and international fandom/sponsorhips leads to global fandom, if not iconic status.

The early days were more complicated

There's something off in this passage:

Old and new Nets fans are blending and forging a new collective identity. The cheers at Barclays Center are often most prominent from 96 or so fans who sit in Section 114. The die-hards there, called the Brooklyn Brigades, are sponsored by the team and are known for their creative chants. That’s a far cry from the early days in Brooklyn, when rival fans often outnumbered those of the Nets and Barclays had middling attendance overall.

Yes, rival fans often inundated Barclays, but the first three years--when the Nets were a novelty, and they sold three-year season-ticket package--the attendance was pretty solid. 

If 94.9% (announced, not actual) attendance was 12th in a 30-team league, it's still pretty good, especially since the Nets cratered in the fourth season.

The verdict

From the article:

And in Brooklyn, there were those who believed Barclays, which was part of a $6 billion commercial and residential redevelopment, would do more harm to the area than good — particularly with concerns about gentrification and congestion.

And what of that? The verdict is complicated, but it's safe to say that the jobs, affordable housing, and uplift project supporters sought have largely not been realized, while the biggest winner in Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park was Mikhail Prokhorov, owner of the Nets and the arena operating company, while Joe Tsai, who bought out Prokhorov, stands to gain from new sponsorships and revenue opportunities.

The fan base in Brooklyn

From the article:

A 2014 study by The New York Times based on Facebook data showed that after two seasons in Brooklyn, the Knicks were the more popular team in every New York City ZIP code, except the neighborhoods surrounding Barclays — in part because of the new residents who had moved to the remade downtown area. In response, the Village Voice referred to the Nets as “Gentrification’s Team.”

Not quite. 

Zip code 11201, which includes Downtown Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights/Cobble Hill, and DUMBO--just above the letter "N" in the screenshot--was still Knicks territory, while the Nets predominated to the east and south.

That, I suspect, was less gentrification than the ability of basketball fans, whether serious or casual, to easily access an arena that, at the time, had reasonable ticket prices, especially compared with the more popular (and distant) Knicks.

Oh, what happened to those promised--but very hard to access--$15 tickets?  To quote team/arena CEO Brett Yormark, "We did decide that, after giving everyone a sampling opportunity, we are a business."

Tickets still may be cheaper than those for the Knicks, but prices have risen significantly.

About "Brooklyn"

The Times quotes former team executive Irina Pavlova:

Pavlova said the franchise focused on using “Brooklyn” as the main calling card to recruit new fans instead of the team name, as other franchises do. The fruits of that marketing effort can still be seen today, when the most common team chant is a drawn out “Broooooklyn!”

Yes, but it would have been wise to have quoted author Jake Appleman, who in his book Brooklyn Bounce reported that the first sporadic "BROOOOOK-LYN" chants were goosed by Nets employees.

Four types of fans

Writes Deb:

The people cheering for the Nets these days can generally be placed in four boxes. 1. Fans since the Nets were in the A.B.A. and playing in Long Island, like Bearak. 2. New Jersey-era fans like Cruz. 3. New, Brooklyn-era fans. 4. Those who root for specific stars, no matter their team.

That last group is the hardest to track and may be the most crucial for the future of the Nets in the N.B.A., where star players are more influential than in other team sports. 

That reflects on the ability of the Nets to go global. 

But Nets' brass, starting with Yormark, presumably still are aiming to ensure that kids in Brooklyn see the Nets as their team, wearing their gear. That's a slow, steady process, and it's surely working somewhat, since the proximity of the team and arena should trump the Knicks among many fans. Yes, I see kids wearing Nets' gear.

And if the Nets win, Deb suggests, that supercharges progress:

There is, in theory, a concrete way to close that gap. Fans go further to associate themselves with winners, as documented in a landmark fan behavior study by Robert B. Cialdini in 1976 — a psychological concept known as “basking in reflected glory.” The opposite — disassociating from losing teams — is known as “cutting off reflected failure.” The study found that fans are likely to say “we” in reference to their favorite team’s winning but “they” if the team loses.

Sure, though what's unclear is what percent of fans merely follow on TV and social media, and how many buy tickets.