Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

It’s not too early to state that the Nets (0-5) are not just a bad team," wrote Substack columnist Steve Lichtenstein Oct. 30. "They are also acutely displeasing to a basketball purist’s eyes." The fan site NetsDaily suggested the Nets "may have one of worst defenses in NBA history." Meanwhile, as NetsDaily editor-in-chief Anthony Puccio observed , "Nets ticket prices seem high for a tanking team. $44 to get in the door; $100+ to sit in the 100s."  Still, the Nets sold out their first two home games, at the new capacity of 17,548 (from 17,732, to account for new entertainment space). Well, surely they want to put a decent team on the floor while aiming for a choice draft spot, but it's a "sports entertainment corporation" (to quote subsidy skeptic Bettina Damiani) first and foremost, so there are different reasons people might attend, including fans of other teams, tourists, and others seeking a basketball experience that, however not...

Forbes' new list of  America's Most Powerful Women in Sports includes two New York Liberty connections, another sign of the team's ascension. Its strategy was to discern categories—owners/investors, business executives, front office leaders, athletes and amplifiers—and then put them in a formula that assessed media mentions, revenue, and more, aiming to list five people per category and no more than two people from the same league in any category.  First among Amplifiers were: #9. Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart Cofounders, Unrivaled; Forward, Minnesota Lynx (Collier); Forward, New York Liberty (Stewart) On the court, Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart are among the best in the game: Collier was the runner-up in voting for the WNBA’s 2025 Most Valuable Player Award, and Stewart won the award in 2018 and 2023. Through Unrivaled, they’re changing the game altogether. Founded by the former UConn teammates in 2023, Unrivaled is a 3-on-3 league offering WNBA players an o...

Waiting for a New Plan. Lots of Big Questions. ( link ) The project is moving ahead, but we don't know the proposed scale, scope, affordability, and design, nor what public concessions the new development team will seek. A new deadline in the 2040s?

An article in THE CITY today, by contributor (and former Crain's New York Business editor and columnist, if you're wondering about any slant) Greg David,  Can Mamdani Make Union-Built Affordable Housing Add Up? , notes that Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani has avoided weighing in on three controversial ballot proposals because he doesn't want to tangle with construction unions, which oppose them. The issues are nuanced and complicated--I'll point to more of the debate in a separate post--but it is true that union labor pays higher wages, and union advocates would like the City Council to retain power, in part to ensure a union presence. Do higher wages make projects more costly? One argument for union labor is that it's higher quality, thus enabling faster, more effective construction. Here's the argument ventilated in the article, though: Anyone claiming that higher priced union workers makes the projects too costly is “a lying silly goose,” said Kevin...

Last week, BSE Global announced that the New York Liberty had added three new investors to the previous six announced in May, with all nine contributing to a valuation, as The Athletic reported, of $450 million. If the investment was in the "mid-teens" as a percentage, a 15% share would be $67.5 million. Divided nine ways, that's $7.5 million each, though it's likely that Alibaba founder Jack Ma, who was announced in May, is the lead investor, according to NetsDaily. He's the only man. The money will help build the Liberty's new $80 million practice facility in Greenpoint, due in 2027. As reported by NetsDaily, citing a BSE Global announcement, the investors are: Robin Roberts, co-anchor of ABC’s Good Morning America, who often gets to sit courtside with Clara Wu Tsai, who takes the lead with the Liberty while husband Joe Tsai takes the lead with the Brooklyn Nets Olivia Walton, wife of a grandson of the Wal-Mart founder, and chair of Crystal Bridges Museum ...

The Barclays Center's $100 million revamp, complete (as always) with sponsorships, continues, just in time for tonight's Brooklyn Nets home opener, with a new space for high rollers and another for all ticketholders. From a press release yesterday: The latest phase of renovations includes Gallagher Terrace, a premium membership club offering the arena’s only in-seat dining with waiter service, and Modelo® Bridge, an upper concourse fan zone created in partnership with the Official Cerveza of the Brooklyn Nets featuring the most expansive bar at Barclays Center - 67 feet in length - and accessible to all guests. Gallagher  is an insurance ande consulting company. The Mexico-based Modelo® is owned by Anheuser Busch outside the U.S. but here the Modelo brand is owned by Constellation Brands , as noted by Wikipedia. To quote NetsDaily: The five year plan began last year with the opening of three high-end restaurants, the Crown Club, Toki Row and JetBlue at the Key, the latter two...

Are Larger Market-Rate Apartments in Brooklyn Marine Terminal Plan Key to the 40% Affordability Promise? ( link ) Below-market apartments are smaller. So, they might occupy less than 40% of the square footage--at least if the city's placeholder assumption is borne out. Same for the revised Atlantic Yards?

Photos Oct. 21 It wasn't officially announced, but it was inevitable: yesterday, and somewhat belatedly, the operators of the Barclays Center removed the Liberty Portraits installation honoring the members of the 2024 WNBA champions New York Liberty team. That truncated access to the arena's Ticketmaster Plaza, as shown in the photos below. Surely some promotion for the Brooklyn Nets, with their home opener Oct. 24, is in the offing. As I wrote  in July, the installation of the nine-foot display cases, with photos and interviews, was billed as art but also qualified as promotion. (After all, they weren't exactly putting up portraits of random Brooklynites.) Presumably, the goal was to keep the portraits up through the WNBA Finals, were the Liberty to repeat. Instead, they lost in the first round of the playoffs, bowing out Sept. 19 . Where will the Liberty Portraits go? There's been no announcement, but there may be space at the Barclays Center, or in storage. In the l...

Most of us would be pretty happy with a 9% return on our investments. For Joe and Clara Wu Tsai, who own 85% of BSE Global (with the Koch family owning the rest), that figure shows they're lagging rival NBA franchises, as values ever rise. NBA TEAM VALUES 2025: WARRIORS LEAD AT $11.33B, AVERAGE HITS $5.5B , Sportico recently reported , with the Brooklyn Nets and their parent company valued at $6.22 billion, up from $5.7 billion last year.  Screenshot from Sportico Don't cry for the Tsais. In 2023, Sportico valued the Nets and the parent company at $3.98 billion, which was only 13th in the 30-team league. Then came a 43% increase in 2024. What changed last year? The emergence of an eager investor, the Koch family, vaulting the value to fourth in the league. These numbers aren't definitive. Note that CNBC in February valued BSE Global at $5.6 billion, and Forbes' last year set a $4.8 billion value , with its 2025 valuation is expected soon. Major factors This year, Spo...

When I reported Oct. 1 ( link ) on the Barclays Center's October 2025 event calendar, I wrote: Note that nothing extra is announced for the Brooklyn Nets' Oct. 24 home-opener against the Cleveland Cavaliers, but last year, prior to the Nets' home-opener against the Milwaukee Bucks, there was "an event on the Plaza from 11 am-6 pm with amplified sound." Well, on Oct. 17, a week before the 7:30 pm game, the arena circulated a notice to neighbors: "Please note that there will be an event on the Plaza on Friday, October 24 from 1-4 pm with amplified sound." Do they somehow "forget" to plan the amplified sound until recently? Or to notify people at the beginning of the month? Or, more likely, did they hold the announcement to avoid more elapsed time for scrutiny?  It's a small thing, but it's not exactly a best practice. Update Oct. 22 : now they tell us the amplified sound also would be from 6-8 pm.  Is that incompetence, or deliberate obf...

As Project Reboots, a Tight--but Augmented--Schedule for Community Engagement, Starting Next Month ( link ) Advisory group thought two in-person sessions, then an online wrap-up, couldn't address issues like housing, density, transportation, public space and more. Now there will be a fourth workshop.

From City Limits: "New Development Team Promises Atlantic Yards Progress, But Housing Penalties Called ‘Insufficient’" Here's the article link . Here's the Substack link , which offers both the article link and some supplementary info. 

Substack sports columnist Steve Lichtenstein, in his Oct. 12 The Too-Early Preseason Assessments Of Nets' Draft Haul , wrote mainly about the four (of five) first-round draft picks who played in the first exhibition game, but added a bonus note about 6'11" 22-year old Fanbo Zeng, who played in the first NBA exhibition in China in six years: I’m over it now, but the ploy I assume was spurred by ownership to play an obviously undeserving China native during Friday’s exhibition had me seething. Ok, maybe if you’re going to have Zeng on the training camp roster, giving him six minutes during the second and fourth quarters can be justified as a goodwill gesture to the hosts. But did the Nets have to play him in the overtime? The Suns targeted Zeng mercilessly by forcing him to switch onto their ballhandlers, where he got toasted, and then the Nets rarely passed him the ball on offense. That helped lead to a loss. Added Lichtenstein: Joseph Tsai, from all appearances, wa...

Was the Atlantic Yards Conflict Merely Between Competing Short-Term Interests? ( link ) To one critic, the 2011 documentary "Battle for Brooklyn" seems like "ancient history." Still, it depicts the project's enduring taint & leaves lessons about skepticism, as a new phase awaits. 

I have a long article coming (not today) on yesterday's meeting of the Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC).  Below, an overview.  Why is this time different for #AtlanticYards #PacificParkBK ? No new plan (scope/timing) yet, but new "permitted developers" Cirrus & LCOR cite agreement with labor (union pension funds supply capital), "mission-driven equity," focus on multiple income levels (not condos)... 2/ pic.twitter.com/O2EQGwiJoD — Norman Oder (@AYReport) October 9, 2025 For now, while NYS officials are pleased there's a new "permitted developer" & joint venture team sounds sincere, big questions remain about scale, subsidies, affordability, & even redesign of a project conceived, as was stated at meeting, "before the iPhone." #AtlanticYards 4/ — Norman Oder (@AYReport) October 9, 2025 Up next are a series of community meetings, supposed to shape plan. Will community input shape a project lik...

Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, we learned yesterday, finally has the expected new development team, with a new deadline to develop an agreement and some limited payments to the state. But deep questions remain about the contours of the remaining project and how an expensive platform would be paid for, much less details regarding that development team or future oversight and guarantees. We do know, however, that the new joint venture has the backing, and pension fund money, from building trades unions, who surely will supply "build it now" testimony at public hearings.  It also has official endorsement-- sans any publicly announced plans about timing, scope, and public concessions regarding the expected eight towers, infrastructure, and affordable units--from Empire State Development (ESD), the gubernatorially controlled state authority that oversees/shepherds the project. Despite ESD denials, surely such plans have been discussed privately, because only assurances of state supp...

Early October Digest: New Developers Coming? Will Platform, as with Hudson Yards, Get Subsidized? ( link ) Also, bus plan for Flatbush Ave. and lessons from BMT/Coney votes. New York Liberty exit playoffs, so BSE Global's Basketball Training Center in former Modell's gets the buzz.

In August, state officials said they had extended the suspension of enforcement and even accrual of $1.75 million a month in liquidated damages for 876 unbuilt affordable housing units, as they were waiting for a new permitted developer to emerge. Officials at Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, said they were aiming for September. That didn't happen.  However, a newly scheduled meeting of the (purportedly) advisory Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC) suggests that something is happening, with updates on an expected new development team and plans for "Community Engagement." Little transparency   The Agenda The meeting, to be held Thursday, Oct. 9, at 3 pm in Brooklyn, was announced in a press release at 2:56 pm today ,  with barely three business days notice--and two days to RSVP and/or file comments on the Agenda.  The Agenda was posted a bit later this afternoon. As per typical, it's ...

The Barclays Center in fiscal year 2025 had another modestly successful year, for the second year delivering a moderate profit: $11.5 million, at least by my alternative calculation, though the arena operating company still declares significant--if dubious--losses for tax purposes. Last year, as I wrote , the figure was $15.5 million. Both numbers significantly lag the original projections offered to bond buyers. As shown in the annotated screenshot below, from a report to bond buyers, Brooklyn Events Center, the name of the operating company, had about $146 million in revenues and $114.4 million in operating expenses. Both were slightly up from FY 2024, though with a larger increase in expenses. Net operating income (NOI) was $31.6 million, an 11.7% decrease from last year's $35.8 million, but far more than the $16.1 million in FY 2023. Still, that's way below the original NOI estimates, which started at $70 million and were downgraded to $55 million , but were never met.  ...

So, naming rights for an arena in Phoenix, housing the NBA's Phoenix Suns and the WNBA's Phoneix Mercury, have been sold for $115 million over ten years, or $11.5 million a year, according to The Athletic . Welcome to the Mortgage Matchup Center! Phoenix, of course, is a smaller market than Brooklyn, which is another sign that the 20-year, $10 million/year contract with the British bank Barclays for the Barclays Center is today under value. In fact, there's a good bet that one reason the Koch family last year invested in arena parent BSE Global--besides, of course, David Koch Jr.'s basketball fandom, sportswashing, and the lure of a scarce commodity--is the upside from the next naming rights deal for the arena. The Barclays contract expires in 2032, and in 2021--when the Brooklyn Nets had a trio of stars, now gone--the New York Post reported on the desire of Joe Tsai's BSE Global to get a new naming rights sponsor.  Nothing came of it.  The WNBA helps   Today, thou...

A Sept. 29 column ( link ) by Fortune's Diane Brady offered "insights from CEOs shaping the next wave of live entertainment," including this squib about the emerging "ecosystem" of sports, media, and events: Create an ecosystem. Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment CEO Sam Zussman is proud of what he’s built around the Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty, but his goal is to turn the Barclays Center into a destination for the community. (The latest example is the Brooklyn Basketball Training Center.) That vision is a big reason why Brooklyn Nets owner (and Alibaba Chairman and cofounder) Joe Tsai chose Zussman. “Sam came in as an outsider and saw BSE Global as a venue-based entertainment business with IP that’s proprietary to us,” Tsai told me recently. “I was looking for someone who can create an ecosystem.” While Zussman says the goal is to “build generational fandom,” the BSE CEO views sports as “a vertical of entertainment” with talent, partners and facilitie...