Jay-Z’s fingerprints are all over the Brooklyn Nets and the new Barclays Center they will open in Brooklyn this season.
Actually, they won’t open it, Jay-Z will with a series of sold-out concerts. Performances some people will watch from the Vault Suites that were specially designed by Jay-Z.
While Mikhail Prokhorov owns 80 percent of the Nets and he and former owner Bruce Ratner are going to make a lot of money on the Brooklyn Yards development project (of which the Barclays Center is an anchor), it is Jay-Z that is the face of the Nets and is controlling a lot of the look and feel as the team moves to Brooklyn — down to what music is played at games. The New York Times breaks it down for us.
He helped design the team logos and choose the team’s stark black-and-white color scheme, and personally appealed to National Basketball Association officials to drop their objections to it (the N.B.A., according to a person with knowledge of the discussion, thought that African-American athletes did not look good on TV in black, an assertion that a league spokesman adamantly denied). He counseled arena executives on what kind of music to play during games. (“Less Jersey,” he urged, pushing niche artists like Santigold over old favorites like Bon Jovi.)
Any time there is less Bon Jovi it is good for all of us, everywhere.
Jay-Z touch is wide ranging even helped come up with better security checks at the door for weapons and the like. Nets GM Billy King said Jay-Z helps out with players in terms of helping find them places to live, helping them adjust to the market. King says that Jay-Z being young, rich and African-American lets him relate to players in a way others just cannot.
If you don’t think having Jay-Z as an owner helps, look at what one prominent agent told the Times:
Aaron Goodwin, an agent who has represented many young players who became N.B.A. stars, said (Jay-Z’s) involvement had improved the image of the Nets in athletes’ eyes. “They’re going to take the phone call now,” he said. “They’re going to take the flight in. They’re going to listen. In years past, the Nets wouldn’t have gotten that. But now they’re in the game.”
Having less Bon Jovi helps, too.
By the way, my favorite revelation of the Times story is that author Mary Higgins Clark and former Treasury secretary Robert E. Rubin also are both minority owners of the team. Really glad they didn’t let Rubin design the new unis.
