The Nets' new anthem: "Brooklyn (something to lean on)" is all about the borough (not the "Nets")

Well, it's a heck of a lot better than the mascot.

The new Brooklyn Nets anthem, Brooklyn (something to lean on) by John Forté (an old friend and business partner of Christophe Charlier, a member of Mikhail Prokhorov's executive team), has gotten enthusiastic reviews.

"Life is more than just a dream/when your team's strong," sings Forté. "We write anthems/this is more than just a theme song." Cue the "Brook-lyn" chorus. Later: "There's only one city/that we lean on/we call that/Brooklyn."

Indeed, the song has a propulsive urgency and the  "Brook-lyn" refrain's catchy, even if, as one member of my small focus group suggested, it has something of a "We Are the World" vibe. The song sure reminds us that the team is all about the borough; there's no mention of the name "Nets."

But can it really be the theme song for not just the team but the borough? It's just another example of the Brooklyn Nets and Barclays Center laying claim to (and exploiting) borough identity. (See my essay on The Brand Called Brooklyn, from The Brooklyn Rail.)

Brooklyn (something to lean on) by darrenrovell

The message

The New York Post provided explanations from those behind the song:

“Creating the team's song felt like a way of saluting my birthplace and the beauties and complexities the borough represents,” said Forté, best known for being a member of the 90s-rap group the Fugees.
“Most important, however, I wanted to salute the multifarious swaths of culture that elevate Brooklyn to the international level of notoriety, which it deserves. My love for Brooklyn made this an easy job – that, and becoming the Nets new number one fan.”
"We are touched by John 's work as it captures the soulfulness and energy that represents Brooklyn," said Petra Pope, senior vice president of event marketing and community relations for the Nets. "This song will be heard around the borough, and it will be part of the new generation of Brooklyn Nets fans."

Below, the video used to introduce the players at games, excerpting the song. It leaves less to the imagination, pairing images of Nets players in street clothes and uniform, on the way to (and at) their important iconic destination, with glimpses of older Brooklyn icons--the Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn Museum, Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Arch, Brooklyn Public Library central library.

Maybe if they spent more time on the actual streets, it would be more convincing. "They're so not Brooklyn," one member of my focus group suggested. "They're just wearing the shirts."

Well, players are fungible--the Nets' team is hugely different from the one last year, and guys can be shipped off in a flash. The more we hear the anthem, perhaps, the more it will seep into public consciousness. I can't believe Marty Markowitz didn't get a cameo.


Brooklyn Nets 2012 Open from TheFamousGroup on Vimeo.

Nets win delayed debut: claimed sellout, Brooklyn invocations, fan enthusiasm, neighborhood impacts less than at Streisand concerts

Photos by Tracy Collins

The Brooklyn Nets' delayed debut last night resulted in a victory over the Toronto Raptors, a reported (but dubious) sellout, and a general sense of fan satisfaction, including "Brook-lyn" chants--except, of course, for the mascot.

And there's a general wave of pride, as the sports world reminds us. "A showpiece," the Brooklyn-born grandfather of RealGM's Jarrod Rudolph tells the writer, from afar. "That building is a showpiece! An absolute thing of beauty."

Outside the arena, as far as I could tell, the impact of crowds was less than at previous events, notably the Barbra Streisand concerts, with the number of idling and honking limos greatly reduced--though not gone, as noted on Atlantic Yards Watch. (I'd reserve a full conclusion til others report in.) It looks like the word did spread that anti-idling measures would be enforced.

(At left, the back of the New York Post.)

What was most notable about my visits to Atlantic Avenue and Dean Street after the game was the dangerous crossing many people made of Atlantic, which was not closed off as with some events, to get to shuttle buses and other vehicles.

They need a crosswalk and/or light; otherwise, there's a disaster waiting to happen.

I didn't spend time on the arena plaza after the game or Pacific Street, which has been a hot spot for problems as eventgoers walk to the Fourth Avenue entrance to the D and R trains.




Around the arena


Last night, the Q train was not back, though others were, and the generally low post-Sandy car traffic reduced the likelihood of traffic jams.

Several shuttle buses to deliver people to Manhattan were used, and they drew people across Atlantic after the game.

The surface parking lot at the southeast block of the Atlantic Yards site looked at best one-third full, while the bicycle parking at the southeast corner of the arena block was less than one-quarter full. Still, at 85-plus bikes, that was the largest total ever.

Some violations persisted.

Despite "No Standing Anytime" signs on Dean Street opposite the arena, the curb was filled with vehicles that somehow get a pass, belonging either to emergency responders or those helping manage traffic, as far as I've seen in the past.

Dodgers redux?

Yes, there was an effort to connect the Brooklyn Nets of 2012 to the Brooklyn Dodgers of 1957. In fact, two Dodgers--but not the person with the most hallowed Dodgers connection--came to the game. The Daily News reported:

Sandy wiped out Brooklyn’s best-laid plans.
The sellout that the Nets hyped for weeks, the celebrity atmosphere, even a special ceremony involving Jay-Z and Jackie Robinson’s 90-year-old widow: scrapped.
No, Saturday night’s opening regular-season game at the Barclays Center didn’t have quite the buildup the Nets were getting before Thursday’s game was postponed. The big Hollywood moment seemed lost because it was two days later, transportation options were iffy, and they played an unsexy opponent, the Raptors. Many tickets were still available hours before tipoff, including $55 seats – even as the MTA restored subway lines running to the $1 billion arena.
...Rachel Robinson, who lives in Connecticut and was going to participate in a ceremonial passing of the torch to Jay-Z on Thursday, couldn’t make it to Saturday’s game.

The New York Post reported, in Nets game provides bright spot for reeling fans:

“Tonight the ghosts of Ebbets Field will be banished forever,” said Markowitz, referring to the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn for Los Angeles in 1957.
Two members of that Dodger team -- pitcher Ralph Branca and catcher Joe Pignatano -- were on hand to welcome the Nets to Brooklyn.

Note that, as seen in the subversive sticker someone appended to an arena directional sign, right, not everyone was on board with Markowitz.

A lift for the community?

The Times reported:

Even the most irrepressible cheerleader, the Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz, acknowledged that the Nets’ season-opening game would not, and should not, unfurl as the party he had once hoped it would be, before the lingering effects of Hurricane Sandy led to the postponement of Thursday’s game against the Knicks.
“You can’t just party away and ignore how many people are suffering,” Markowitz said. “How much sweeter it would have been if everyone in the borough were living the lives they were living before the storm.”
And so it was that the return of professional sports to Brooklyn, a moment more than a half-century in the making, arrived Saturday with something more than a thud and as something less than a celebration.
Still, fans appeared grateful for the distraction provided by the Nets’ 107-100 victory.

New York Post columnist Mike Vaccaro:

Honestly? There wasn’t a lot to argue with last night. Prokhorov was Prokhorov beforehand, reminding everyone that he’s now three years away from having to fulfill his marriage vow if the Nets don’t win a title. David Stern was in the house, honoring “the resilience of the community” and welcoming “Brooklyn, USA to the NBA” and, thankfully, not summoning Katrina when he meant Sandy, as he did in Miami the other night.
Pignatano was there, and the great Ralph Branca, and somehow it didn’t look as silly as it should have when they wore tank tops with “BROOKLYN” over their dress shirts.
“Brooklyn,” Branca said, “is the best.”

Photo via Jason Shaltz

It always was, of course, which is why after 55 years there still is so much affection attached to those memories, those times, those athletes. And judging by the energy in the building last night, it still can be. On its own. Walking its own path. Creating its own legacy. Building its own history.

A sellout?

The AP (via New York Post) reported:

A sold-out crowd of 17,732 that included entertainers Jay-Z, a part-owner, and wife Beyonce chanted "Brooklyn! Brooklyn!" a few times during the game and loudly at the end, celebrating the name on the front of the shirt much more than the back

A bit of skepticism from Toronto

Toronto Star reporter Doug Smith's live blog cast a bit of non-homer skepticism on some of the proceedings:

Great, now some political doofus is delaying the start.

I see all kinds of empty private suites and rows of empty seats; they can't in good conscience call this a sellout; I understand entirely why it wouldn't be given the circumstances of this week, though

A few videos

VIP parking on Dean Street "pad" outside arena



Crossing Atlantic Avenue



Less idling at Atlantic and South Portland

The BrooklyKnight mascot superhero introduced: a cartoon defender of "Brooklyn" when the borough needs real ones

Photo via http://thescore.tumblr.com/

I'll have more later on the Brooklyn Nets debut last night, but first, a few words about The Brooklyn Knight or, as he's apparently known, The BrooklyKnight, the Nets' new mascot. He's apparently already making people miss the comparatively real predecessor, Sly Fox.

"I think we can all agree that everything was a success tonight with the notable exception of the mascot," tweeted Daily News beat writer Stefan Bondy. "For what it's worth: it's really, really, really nice that the Nets' major weakness right now is that their mascot sucks," commented Devin Kharpertian of The Brooklyn Game.

"The Brooklyn Knight looks like a building Bruce Ratner would use eminent domain on," he added, prompting a response: "he looks like a cheap, cheap WWE character."

He does, and it was particularly notable that a cartoon superhero was claimed for Brooklyn at a time when the borough very much needs mundane, shoulder-to-the wheel help (and money).

Announcer David Diamante, with a background announcing boxing matches and DJing at strip clubs, read the introduction--clearly written before Hurricane Sandy--with no recognition of potential ironies.



"And now, Nets fans, look to the sky," Diamante declared portentously. "It's time, descending from the rafters, after so long, the wait is finally over. The power within this hallowed ground can be contained no longer. Tonight, at long last, to this Brooklyn, your Brooklyn, to this arena, your arena, to this team, your team, your superhero is here. Born from the beating heart of your Brooklyn. Forged from the steel and stone as your battleground, he's your hunger for a team to call your own. He's your passion given form. Here, to defend Brooklyn, he's the BrooklyKnight."

I don't think any of that is "ours" except in the sense of geography.

(And yes, there's a porn star known as "Brooklyn Night." Her credits include some rather creatively named films.)

What sports can do

Daily News columnist Mike Lupica wrote:

We always want to make the games part of the relief effort, as if they’re being played for the victims. They’re not. They never have been and never will be. Of course there have been bad times before this when we all wanted to buy into the romantic conceit that our teams and our athletes can somehow make us feel that we’re all in something together. We’re not. Even at their best, they’re just games.
...The Knicks didn’t win one for New York on Friday night because they made a lot of 3’s and beat the Heat in a game that the Heat seemed completely disinterested in playing, and not just Dwyane Wade. The Giants won’t be winning one for the Jersey Shore today and the Nets aren’t winning one for Staten Island.
...You want to remember a magnificent relief effort in New York City, remember the one we saw at Shea Stadium in September of 2001, when the Mets and their manager Bobby Valentine turned the place into an emergency clearing house for goods and volunteers and even offered first responders from out of town a place to rest for a while.

The promotion

An announcement, via comicbook.com:

“Brooklyn now has a new Super Hero to call its own,” said Brett Yormark, CEO of the Brooklyn Nets and Barclays Center. “BrooklyKnight is a superior combination of strength, power, and confidence — sounds just like Brooklyn to me.”
“Marvel Entertainment has outdone itself with its newest Super Hero creation for the Brooklyn Nets,” Brooklyn Nets Chairman Christophe Charlier said. “We are honored to have collaborated with the company of the world’s mightiest Super Heroes.”
“As a Brooklynite and a hardcore hoops fan, for me to get the opportunity to help create a Super Hero for my home borough’s new team was a dream come true,” said Axel Alonso, Editor in Chief, Marvel Entertainment. “Working with the Nets staff, we have created a team Super Hero that is unlike anything the NBA has ever seen; a timeless character who can stand shoulder to shoulder with icons like Spider-Man, Captain America, Wolverine, and Thor. Let’s go, Nets!”
A comic book featuring the character–written by Jason Aaron and drawn by Mike Deodato–was given away at the game. The cover can be seen above and sample pages below. Fans attending the game November 11 against the Orlando Magic will receive a trading card featuring the character from Marvel Custom Solutions.
“Forged from the blood, sweat and tears of Brooklyn itself — always ready to defend his home and defeat any challenger — all hail the BrooklyKnight!” exclaimed Bill Rosemann, Editor, Marvel Custom Solutions. “When Nets fans meet their guardian, they will immediately know that the House of Ideas has once again unleashed a hero who will soon be known all over the world for his nobility, grit, and strength. Brooklyn, your champion is here!”

Nets debut tonight, as planned media hype resumes; will subways be back later? what about those $15 tickets?

The Brooklyn Nets debut at home tonight against the Toronto Raptors, and apparently there will be a new mascot, new anthem, t-shirts, and other hullaballoo, maybe some Dodgers nostalgia. It won't be Nets vs. Knicks as planned for Thursday, but it's still going to get noticed.

Will the transportation plan work? Well, the reliance on buses and cars--as well as LIRR--announced yesterday suggested lots of challenges, but this morning there's word that the MTA is testing the renewal of Manhattan to Brooklyn subway service. If it's live by mid-afternoon, that will be a huge help to event-goers.

Update 1:30 pm: The 4/5 trains are back, and the Q train is expected to be back later this afternoon. That will ease the burden on other forms of transit.

The Knicks and the Marathon

Some people don't even think the Knicks should have played last night. Mike Lupica in the Daily News, Mayor Bloomberg's decision to cancel marathon right step in nick of time: The mayor came under heavy attack from critics for going forward with the marathon in a week where over 40 New Yorkers were killed and thousands more left homeless.:

They certainly are going to play a football game in New Jersey on Sunday, Giants against the Steelers. But at least they are not going to play it at the Jersey Shore. And by the way? If that game had been postponed, nobody would have argued with that decision. And the Knicks should not have played a basketball game at the Garden on Friday night, another show that just had to go on.
But why?
There are millions without power in this whole area we think of as New York, and people sit in lines forever to buy gas, where they are still able to buy gas, and then go home and live in the cold and the dark.
Life in Breezy Point will never be the same because of this storm, all those houses lost, gone, like a book of matches catching fire, that fast.
Life in the ravaged parts of Staten Island will never be the same.

Opening hype

The cliches about Brooklyn continue. Writes Lisa Olsen in The Sporting News, Brooklyn Nets opening night: A borough, a team and a dream:

“Walk around and you’ll hear all about how that broke Brooklyn’s heart. Everyone has their story,” the coach of the Nets tells shooting guard Joe Johnson, who nods and says he hopes to hear all the tales. To hear about the Dodgers’ integration of baseball when most other teams refused to budge, about Jackie Robinson’s dignity and grace, about the majesty of Ebbets Field and the hole left when Walter O’Malley moved the team to Los Angeles in 1958, after his dream to build a ballpark along the Atlantic Railroad Yards failed. The spot is where the $1 billion state-of-the-art Barclays Center now stands.

It's not the spot, and it's not $1 billion.

More from the article:

Adam Salazar, a native Brooklynite who produces and films a docuseries called City Hardwood about NYC public school hoops (Lincoln High and Ethan Telfair were featured in Season 1), says bluntly: “Brooklyn is the coolest borough, and we’re going to have the coolest team. I mean, who would you rather root for—Jay-Z’s team or Dolan’s?
“The Knicks are so frustrating, there’s no way the Nets don’t cut into this. Pretty much all of Brooklyn is going to be Nets fans if they aren’t already,” he adds. “You’re going to see people wearing Brooklyn Nets gear more than Knicks gear worldwide in pretty short order. It may take a little while, but within a generation of sports fans the Brooklyn Nets will be the dominant team in NYC.”

Not sure about that, but it is true that the Knicks' ownership has repeatedly sabotaged the team's relationship with fans.

The brand new start

Tbe Star-Ledger reported, in Nets looking for a `brand' new start in Brooklyn:

This is certain: The Nets, replanted across two rivers, are a cosmic leap removed from the place they held in the imagination only a few months ago.
The experts in name equity (another bit of lexicon lifted from the facelift handbook) agree that the first decision was the critical one, to gain the cachet that comes with Brooklyn. And the Nets have another asset, and this may come as a revelation.
They have the Knicks.
If the Knicks are establishment, the Nets are cutting edge. If Madison Square Garden is an opera house, the Barclays Center is street theater. In effect, the Knicks enable the Nets to tell a story, of the underdog lifting up from the shadow of the giant.
...The Nets have their high-end side, with the priciest tickets going for $1,500, but of the arena’s 17,734 seats, the club says 2,000 each game will go for $15.

Actually, those 2.000 tickets represent more hype than anything else. They haven't put 2,000 tickets on sale for fans; rather, there was some limited amount available yesterday on Facebook. Maybe today there will be a few more.

What happened to the "2,000" $15 tickets for each Brooklyn Nets game? Well, it looks like a few hundred tickets were sold this morning, for those on Facebook

As I wrote 9/25/12, backers of the Brooklyn Nets, including Borough President Marty Markowitz, arena developer Bruce Ratner, and team/arena CEO Brett Yormark, have made a big deal out of the claimed 2,000 seats that would cost people only $15.

But they've been very hard to get, with some ticket reps even claiming that they were sold out and wouldn't become available.

Some were apparently sold as season tickets, and team spokesman Barry Baum told me, with notable lack of precision, "As we promised there will be $15 seats available for purchase before each game."

Update: The Nets announced 9/10/12:

A limited number of individual tickets starting at $15 each will be made available 72 hours prior to each Brooklyn Nets home game. Details to follow.

Some tickets today

Some--perhaps just 301--$15 seats to the opening night game tomorrow were made available this morning, via the Brooklyn Nets Facebook page, as noted in the screenshot at right. (Of course there was a sponsor attached, this time Modell's.) The announcement was also on Twitter:

However, those tickets sold out very quickly, as noted in comments on that Facebook post. Despite 380 "likes," only some people were successful, with others stymied. One even commented that scalpers and ticket brokers might have gotten the seats; after all, there's still a hot secondary market for the Nets' belated debut.

Pending questions

How many seats were put on sale? Will more be sold?

I queried Baum, but haven't heard back.

Shouldn't some seats be available at the box office or by phone for those who aren't attuned to Facebook?

Will they do it this way for every game? (Presumably for some games, where there's less demand, they will have more $15 tickets.)

Meanwhile, there are tickets available via Ticketmaster--for $55.60, as noted in the screenshot above left. On the resale marketplace, seats on StubHub start at $50, though that price should fluctuate.

Only 301 $15 tickets sold?

From the screenshot below (from here), it looks like only 301 $15 tickets were put up for sale, though that's hardly certain.

If you click through on the Find Tickets button, however, the screen indicates that there are "no group tickets left."

Barclays Center round-up: Nets-Knicks rescheduled; $1M from NBA; the Guardian, Newsday, SBNation take on arena; is there a rivalry yet?

Well, the much-hyped first home game for the Brooklyn Nets, scheduled and reconfirmed for last night before it was belatedly canceled, has been rescheduled to Monday, Nov. 25. Yes, TNT will televise it nationally.

We're still waiting for the transportation plan to be announced before tomorrow night's opener against the Toronto Raptors, but people must be optimistic about that: prices on the secondary market have risen from $35 to $52 in a day.

And the NBA and its players maybe realized that they had a public relations problem on their hands. So they're both doing the right and, I'd say, some strategic p.r. From the Star-Ledger:

Following the lead of the NFL and its players union, the NBA and its players union, the NBPA, have jointly agreed to donate $1 million to the Red Cross and other organizations, including The Salvation Army, New York Cares and Jersey Cares, to aid those groups' efforts in helping people affected by Hurricane Sandy.

A shitshow near the arena

Will Leitch wrote in New York magazine, Tomorrow Night, the Brooklyn Nets Are Real:

If you've been around downtown Brooklyn over the last couple of days, it's been that much more clear why there was no way the Brooklyn Nets could have hosted that opener against the New York Knicks last night. We met a friend for a drink last night at Black Sheep, a bar just down the street from Barclays, at 9 p.m., and the whole front concourse of the arena was still packed with people trying to get on buses. (We sort of imagined them finally getting on one after showing up earlier that morning.) It was a shitshow already; trying to play a basketball game — an opening basketball game — would have been a nightmare. And that's not even accounting for the question of, uh, how anyone was going to get there. So: They will try it again tomorrow night.

Some arena round-ups

The Guardian's SportBlog (The Guardian!) offers Brooklyn Nets: NBA's newest franchise ends 55 years of hurt since Dodgers left: Team owned by Russian billionaire and rapper Jay-Z is set to bring major-league sport back to the most populous borough:

...when the Dodgers took off for Los Angeles, leaving behind a gaping hole in the hearts of their fans, never mind the enormous hole containing the undeveloped rail yards space which would remain virtually untouched while the borough went into a deep slide.

The functioning rail yards, which were never put out for bid, actually. The conclusion:

Yes, there are still protests about the project, about traffic and parking and more, but the Nets' public-relations battle is centered on developing a fanbase for a team that has landed smack in the middle of Knicks territory. According to one report, the team is paying $25 to store owners to put Nets posters in their windows that read "First Home Game since 1957". The subways are blanked with the new Nets colors and logos and the catchphrase "Hello Brooklyn", all designed to bring a hometown feel to the borough's new team.

Will it work? Yes – and especially if they win.

From Newsday, Brooklyn's Barclays Center: the food, the art, the shops. This article concerns only the interior of the arena--well, including some shops at the arena that are open to the street.

Reasons for protest

SBNation, Branding Brooklyn:

Those who protest the existence of the Barclays Center and the attendant development of Atlantic Avenue [sic] do so on three grounds: That the state displaced hundreds of residents via the use of eminent domain to secure Ratner's rights to the property; that the hoped-for affordable housing on Atlantic has yet to, and may never, materialize; and that the development of Atlantic will lead to runaway gentrification. The first complaint is plainly valid—eminent domain is brutal—and the second may become so, depending on what happens with those holes in the ground at the edge of Prospect Heights. The third complaint is crazy. This corner of Brooklyn gentrified a long time ago, which is why the most constant complaints about the arrival of the Barclays Center come not from long-time residents who fear rising rents, but from those residents whose arrival has caused rents to rise. (Full disclosure: I am one of those residents.)

I'd point to the Culture of Cheating.

The conclusion:

"The boys on the Knicks, maybe they're not from New York, but at least they want to come here," he said. “Just like people from all over the world want to come here. That makes it a hometown team. But the Nets? The Brooklyn Nets? The Brooklyn Nets is just a logo. Maybe one day it'll be more than that, but not yet. Not for a long time."

Is there a rivalry?

New York Times columnist Harvey Araton, Proximity Alone Does Not a Rivalry Make:

“No disrespect to them, it’s not a rivalry, not yet,” [Knicks center Tyson Chandler] said, before turning his attention to the Knicks’ opener at Madison Square Garden on Friday night against the Miami Heat, an opponent worthy of some good old-fashioned hatred, and at least as much envy.
Chandler was not being intentionally banal, merely contending that you do not declare a rivalry as much as you create one. “Two teams have to go through some big things,” he said, suggesting, for starters, a hot playoff series or two.
...The shortsighted benefit of Thursday night’s sensible postponement in the wake of Hurricane Sandy and far more pressing concerns is that the Nets were spared the embarrassment of hearing those familiar Knicks cheers in their sparkling new home after enduring them in three New Jersey arenas over three and a half decades.
Anecdotal evidence of turncoat Knicks fans aside, we will know with far greater certainty that the Nets have arrived as a true intracity alternative when a fair number of their Nets loyalists manage to storm the Garden and create a similar mixed crowd dynamic.

Well, maybe. There are a lot more Knicks season-ticket holders to make it tougher to "storm the Garden."

After Nets' coveted home opener, tickets at three games already significantly discounted

Yes, there's huge demand for the Brooklyn Nets' home opener Nov. 1 against the New York Knicks, with tickets on the secondary market starting at about $175. (They were $200 last week.)

But the third, fourth, and fifth games are already on discount--and that's without some number of the elusive but highly promoted $15 seats coming open.

CBS Local, via Crowd Seats, has an offer for tickets from 44% to 51% off three games in the following two weeks. (And those aren't the biggest bargains--see below.)

Check StubHub

Also, StubHub--which is establishing a retail storefront on Atlantic Avenue west of the arena--has lots of even cheaper seats for those games, likely from season ticket holders who see these as less interesting and/or bought the seats as an investment.