http://espn.go.com/new-york/nhl/sto...islanders-following-nets-brooklyn-sources-say Will anyone care? From what I understand, this arena wasn't really built well to accommodate hockey.
This is the greatest thing in the history of the United States of America!!!! First things first, the coliseum sucks and Nassau County sucks. What Brooklyn has better than the NVMC is better accessibility for Long Islanders as the LIRR is downstairs. Plus, Long Island's wallet is NYC. One of the major impediments to the Isles doing well attendence wise is having a ton of 7pm games that noone could get to. Now, Joe Islander can take the 2,3,4,5,A,B,C,D,G,N,Q or R to the game and take the train home. It makes too much sense. As for the arena, that roof looks like it could lift if demand increases. But for right now 15K is fine. And the ice fits easily. What is needed is a second pair of dressing rooms which shouldn't be a big deal. You ask if anyone will care. Hell yes they will. The children of the boomers have moved back to the city and they still have emotional ties. But now they have money. Oh, and suck it Long Island and Robert Moses!
Yeah, this is good news, much better than the Quebec Islanders. If some sort of arena expansion is possible down the road ~15k will suffice.
The real question is, how will the corporate suites work? Will the Islanders be able to sell the corporate suites independent of the Nets? Or will the Islanders get a cut of the Nets sales equivalent to the portion of the dates the Islanders will occupy? In today's stadium market, the corporate suites make up the difference for having a few thousand less seats in the stands, so I agree that only having 15k in Brooklyn vs 17k in Naussau County wouldn't seem to be that big of an issue. I would just caveat that with the Islanders needing to getting a cut of the corporate suite sales.
Why did they design the stadium to be so small for ice hockey? Did they think Brooklyn was too hip for the sport? Talk about bad foresight ... one month after the stadium opens we find out its not that ideal for one of its 2 main tenants.
Honestly 15k should be fine for hockey. If the stadium is full, scarcity of supply will work a la Winnipeg to allow for higher prices. From the article it seems like the Nets are on board with this deal, so I'd expect this has been addressed. How the revenue is shared and who gets rights to the suites for hockey games will depend on the owners - but I can't see Wang leasing the arena and handing over suite revenue to the Nets though.
The arena was not designed to be a basketball/hockey arena. It was designed to be a basketball stadium and a hockey team is moving in after the fact. This isn't a situation where the Islanders and the Nets were always going to be sharing the arena, but rather a situation where the Nets built an arena that worked for them and then the Islanders coming along later saying "Hey, we can't get a new arena built out in Nassau County, you mind if we move in?"
Once the team moves in, will it be named the Brooklyn Islanders or will it come up with a new team name? -G
I guess, although we all knew years ago that this was a distinct possibility. 2015 is a bit earlier than I would have guessed, but it really was more a matter of 'when', not 'if'.
Certainly a possibility, but as MitH mentioned the arena as a whole was NIMBY'd down to a smaller arena. It shouldn't be surprising that an arena that was originally designed as a 20k basketball/18k hockey arena that has been NIMBY'd down to a 18k basketball arena would see a corresponding decrease in the size. Granted, the decrease in hockey was larger than the decrease in basketball, but when the only guaranteed tenant is going to be basketball, the arena is going to be designed favoring basketball.
No need to change the name. Brooklyn is technically on Long Island. From an old man stand point, it is sorta cool seeing the piece of shit Islanders and the Nets together in the same building once again. Just give me Warner Wolf sports highlights of the games.
So the Nets go from being tenants in an arena built for hockey to being landlords of a hockey team in a building built for basketball.
I talked with friends at SHoP about this. When they took over the design from Frank Ghery, the Islanders were in the middle of trying to sell the Lighthouse project, version 1 which was going to be financed 100% by Charles Wang and friends. The assumption was that a plan that was completely financed privately couldn't fail. But everyone underestimated the stupidity of Nassau County and the Town of Hempstead. Once that died, Ratner had already bid the project and SHoP had already gone into 50% CD's. There was no turning back. Plus, in order to placate kvetching from entitled Park Slope assholes they revised the height downward. Since width is restricted by Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues, and below grade work is limited by the LIRR, the possibility of having the same ceiling heights as in the Ghery project were impossible.
and leaving: Ian Thomas @byIanThomas 5h5 hours ago Sources confirm the Isles' bid to build a new arena at Belmont has been accepted by NYS, beating out a bid from NYC FC. An official announcement is scheduled tomorrow.