Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

Brooklyn Nets fans, led by the pseudonymous Net Income (aka Bob Windrem) are thrilled by the emergence of the team's big-spending owner, who's on the cusp of landing Dwight Howard, as I wrote today . As Windrem wrote July 6 on NetsDaily : Mikhail Prokhorov had a good day Thursday. According to the Forbes Real Time Billionaire Tracker, he made $26.37 million or almost enough to pay for Joe Johnson and Gerald Wallace's salaries next season...in a day! Its that kind of wealth and the willingness to spend it that separates Prokhorov from most NBA owners ... and those who previously controlled the Nets . As Stefan Bondy writes Friday, the Nets moves already accomplished this week, plus the hoped-for acquisition of Dwight Howard would put his luxury tax bill for the next five years at $107.5 million. In other words, for Prokhorov, it's pretty much painless, and his wealth is based on savvy deal-making, good fortune, and inevitable corruption . But Prokhorov and espe...

This is fairly minor stuff, but it again illustrates the disdain that Net Income (aka Bob Windrem), the chief contributor to the NetsDaily blog, has for the Brooklyn neighborhood where the Barclays Center is being built. What to him is "More Finishing Touches" links to a Brownstoner post,  More AY Concerns, This Time About Broadcasting Space . Slightly different, but, then again, Windrem once crowed , "I don’t care what happens to these people…not one iota." And Mr. Income, not exactly a regular visitor to Brooklyn, seems to think that the site at issue, across from the arena block, used to be home to Freddy's Bar. Not so. It used to include two houses, as shown in the graphics here . Freddy's was located on the arena block. ( Update : Now that reference is gone.)

Citing news articles and even coverage in Russian (via Google Translate), NetsDail y, via chief editor "Net Income," does not typically hold back in its coverage of Nets principal owner Mikhail Prokhorov. Except, curiously enough, there's been no mention of Monday's MSNBC profile by Robert (Bob) Windrem, aka Net Income. Maybe that's because Windrem was quoting himself. Or because Windrem was described merely as a "senior investigative producer for NBC News and a Nets season ticket holder." He's a lot more than that. Windrem knows he has to stay professional. His pseudonymous alter ego--not so much. His lust for a new arena for his favorite team--"NI is the biggest Brooklyn fan on this website," one commenter  observed --means that, too often, the end justifies the means. "He never wanted the team," Net Income commented  6/12/11 regarding developer Bruce Ratner, who bought the Nets to move them to to Brooklyn,  leverage...

You know who's bothered by Atlantic Yards construction noise. According to NetsDaily , the pseudonymously (and tendentiously) written website that claims to aggregate all Nets-related news, they're "[c]ritics of the arena." No, they're not "critics of the arena." They're people who (in the main) have been uninvolved in the Atlantic Yards controversy but just happen to live very close to noisy construction . Which disturbs their sleep. Why? Because the state allows very loud overnight work to go on very near them.

According to an 8/20/11 article in the Williamsport (PA) Sun-Gazette, headlined City authority explores new type of parking facility , Forest City Ratner is considering an inexpensive, fast-to-assemble pre-fab parking solution (which, I'd add, is apparently little tested domestically, if at all): Williamsport Parking Authority is exploring a less all-concrete type of parking facility, designed to be demountable, semi-permanent and more environmentally friendly. It's called More Park System, a "bump-up parking deck," which is made of removable pre-cast concrete platforms secured by galvanized steel beams that can be assembled in a few weeks - as opposed to several months of construction - and is available in airports in Europe and soon to be providing parking for the Brooklyn Nets, the NBA's new franchise team. Neither the Nets (not a "new" franchise) nor Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner have made such an announcement, but it's plausible ...

From the ever-arena-boosting Net Income, in Nets Daily, Could Atlantic Terminal Lure Isles? : We haven't seen NHL commissioner Gary Bettman wandering around Atlantic and Flatbush in a construction helmet, carrying a measuring tape. Things have calmed down a bit regarding an Islander move to Brooklyn. Still, there are some out there, like the Brooklyn hockey fans the Daily News found Tuesday, who want to see the Isles move 22 miles to the west despite a smaller capacity and questionable sightlines. In the calculus, however, one thing isn't getting a lot of attention: the Long Island Railroad's new Atlantic Terminal, at the other end of an underground passageway from Barclays Center. Opened in 2010, it accommodates 25,000 LIRR passengers daily, many of whom switch in Brooklyn for subway rides to the Financial District. Some are suggesting that a return trip in the evening, with time out for a hockey game, could be a big lure for the Islanders and their fans. One reason w...

Nets General Manager Billy King , along with paid pitchman Albert King, a Brooklyn native and former Net, hosted basketball writers Wednesday at the under-construction Barclays Center. King, who lives in suburban Philadelphia and spent a good chunk of his professional career in that city, made a stunningly uninformed comment, equating the Atlantic Yards setting to the setting for the United Center in Chicago, suggesting that the impact of the arena would be similar. Chicago vs. Brooklyn The United Center is located on a 46-acre parcel. The Atlantic Yards arena is located on a, what, six-acre parcel? The United Center is located in a non-residential area west of the Chicago Loop. The Barclays Center will abut neighborhoods that have predominantly low-rise and mid-rise residential buildings. The arena, yes, will bring changes to Brooklyn, notably event-related retail and entertainment. But there's no comparison to Chicago. (Nor, really, to L.A., but that's a differe...

 An unsigned 7/17/11 article in Arena Digest, Debate continues over new Nets arena , is surely written (or influenced) by the pseudonymous NetIncome (aka Bobbo), the dyspeptic and prolific main contributor to NetsDaily . The article purports to be a summary but bears a project-affectionate slant, with a few digs at me. A "matter of process" It begins: The new Brooklyn arena for the relocating New Jersey Nets (NBA) continues to generate controversy; community activists opposing Atlantic Yards won a court decision but failed to persuade a judge to stop construction on Barclays Center . ...However, she did not halt construction on the first phase of the project, nor did she halt progress on the second phase, which will include surface parking and more. ...really the win in court last week was more a matter of process being reviewed than any decision on the merits of the project. Winning the court decision is pretty significant without having to stop arena co...

Updated: Exclusive: How An NBA Team Makes Money Disappear [UPDATE WITH CORRECTION] CORRECTION: Portions of the analysis below are wrong. They were based on a misreading of the "Loss on players' contracts" line item, which, it turns out, wasn't an RDA claim after all. (If you look in the audit notes for 2004, No. 8 refers to a "player buy-out and a player injury" — the former of which is almost certainly Dikembe Mutombo — totaling the same $25.1 million listed in the "Loss" line item.) The example is bad, and I apologize for that. I'm leaving the text here for a couple reasons: 1.) The roster depreciation allowance is real, even if we've misidentified it here, and it provides owners with a significant tax shelter based on a baroque logic. 2.) The Nets, like all franchises, do use large paper losses to pad their expenses. Here's what ESPN's experts found using the same set of documents (particularly the 2005-06 financials): In othe...

From yesterday's NetsDaily : Meanwhile Back in Brooklyn... Amidst news that yet a third sports bar is planned opposite Barclays Center, a long-awaited documentary about the struggle of local landowners and tenants to stop the arena and Atlantic Yards has debuted at the Brooklyn Film Festival. "Brooklyn Matters" , which at times had trouble getting funding, describes itself as "an insightful documentary that reveals the fuller truth about the Atlantic Yards proposal and highlights how a few powerful men are circumventing community participation and planning principles to try to push their own interests forward." The Brooklyn Paper which was first an opponent and then a proponent of the project, gave it a mixed review saying on one hand ""Brooklyn Matters" is a clever invective that will preach to the converted — the Atlantic Yards opponents who are its likely audience — a sermon they already believe: Atlantic Yards is bad" ...

It's always fun to watch Nets Sports and Entertainment CEO Brett Yormark spin, and in an interview April 6 on Fox Business, he did just that. Notably, he jumped from the statistic that Brooklyn would be the fourth-largest city, by population, to conclude that Brooklyn would be the country's fourth-largest market. It's not an independent market, nor are markets limited to the boundaries of a city or county. Rather, Brooklyn is part of the large New York market. Team name Yormark said he "likes" the team name "Brooklyn Nets" and called it is the "working title." But he said it's not a done deal, so we should wait for an announcement "in the next month or two." Surely he knows. As I've previously stated, I suspect they're just withholding confirmation of "Brooklyn Nets" for the publicity value. Hockey? The interviewer asked if the new arena would accommodate hockey, such as the New York Islanders, currently playi...

The Nets are in London as part of the NBA's (and their) march toward world branding. In Nets Repay Barclays for the Favor , Nets Daily blogger Net Income (aka "the Leni Riefenstahl of the New Jersey Nets" ) has an exclusive: This much is indisputable about the Nets' move to Brooklyn: If Barclays hadn't agreed to a $400 million naming rights deal in 2007, the arena now known as Barclays Center would never have been built. It was the critical commitment at the critical time for the Nets. Without it, the whole effort would have lacked credibility. So dressed in suits and ties (Jordan Farmar and Johan Petro wore bow ties), Nets players and Avery Johnson spent part of their first day in London at a presentation to some 300 Barclays Capital executives and employees Wednesday. It was the first team event, other than a photo at the London Tower Bridge. The "favor" did not come from Barclays. Barclays made an investment, from its advertising budget. (You could ar...

In an article headlined in print "Yormark Twins Put Their Marks on Nets and Panthers" and online as Twins that Look Alike, and Work Alike , the New York Times Sports section offers a predictable profile of uber-marketers Brett Yormark of the basketball Nets and Michael Yormark of the Florida Panthers hockey team. (The article does come with an oddly dismaying photo of the twins at a Nets game, busy with their Blackberries, while Brett's children look off into the crowd.) Here's the crux of the positive piece: In parallel, they are trying to sell basketball and hockey in cities where their teams are overshadowed by more popular franchises and sports. They have weathered ownership changes, long playoff droughts and arena moves. They have embraced their roles as underdogs, working long days, sometimes up to 18 hours, to promote most anything that keeps their teams in the news and generates income for their money-losing franchises. Their almost pitbull-like drive and a w...

Now that the Nets have traded Chinese forward Yi Jianlian to the Washington Wizards to clear salary cap space (and bid for two free agents, not one), what happens to the team's global ambitions? (And when will they update the Nets' Chinese web site , which still features Yi, as in the screenshot at right?) Well, notwithstanding the role of globetrotting Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov as owner, there has to be a setback in the world's most populous country. I didn't see that concern in coverage of the Yi deal in the AP , News , Post , or the official press release . Some savvy The Star-Ledger's Dave D'Alessandro wisely pointed out : Ether way, Yi and his $4.05M salary are history -- so much for that foray into the Asian continent, unless they believe a billion Chinese fans are going to follow the owner, which doesn't seem likely. And NetsDaily editor NetIncome added : the big problem is how do you sell the Nets as a global franchise when you just ...

Some rhetoric about the Nets and Brooklyn sounds disturbingly like the rhetoric that preceded the Rwandan genocide. From Dances with Devils: A Journalist's Search for Truth , by Jacques Pauw: A few months earlier, [Professor Leon Mugusera] had made a speech in the western prefecture of Gisenyi. Elizaphan quoted what the professor had said of Tutsis: "The vermin must be liquidated. Know that the person whose throat you do not cut now ill be the one who will cut yours. Wipe out this scum!" From NetsDaily commenters regarding DDDB's Daniel Goldstein i’m no fan of the Rat, but this Daniel Goldstein sounds like a real piece of work. i hope he gets not a penny more than what ECDC offers now. and his screams would be music to my ears. what scum. by JohnY on Nov 17, 2009 1:12 AM EST This guy Goldstein is a scumbag. He could have probably gotten 2 mill a year ago. I think its ironic that the appraisal on his home came in at 510G. I wouldnt doubt that MSG has been behind the l...