The Barclays Center management set a goal of 220 events for its opening year and they are still 50 events short. The fact that Brooklyn still needs to fill events helps the Islanders leverage when dealing with the Barclays Center. This creates a need for the Islanders 41 home games to fill the void for the opening season and future ones as well. If Wang is interested in moving to Brooklyn he has leverage on getting a good lease because of the before mention needed dates. He also has leverage on getting a piece of the Atlantic yards development, since Ratner still needs help financing the project. It may not be the way Wang drew it up, but he could still end up with the Islanders in a new arena and additional development to help support the team. A Wang and Ratner partnership could go a long way in solving both men problems.
Additional Reading:
http://www.netsdaily.com/2011/12/2/2605266/barclays-books-big-names
I have "sure-fire" way to solve "50 dates". But will it work? Will they (Ratner, Provky or Wang) be willing to do this? Here is breakdown
ReplyDeleteIslanders @ 41 games (add 2 more for preseason so thats 43)
AFL Franchise @ 9 home games
NLL Franchise @ 8 home games
Add it up and you got 60 dates reserved for Islanders, AFL and NLL franchise. Problem solved.
But running the sports franchise is quite expensive and Im not sure if they have funds to run AFL and NLL team. Will tehy do it? Do they want to? Thats something those 3 fine gentlemen need to get together and discuss if its worth going to AFL and NLL.
If thats NOT the option, I have one franchise that they can do. To make the rival even more heated against MSG, why not have WNBA franchise that have 17 home games? Adding WNBA franchise would creat 3 tier rivals with MSG/Dolan when you have Knicks, Rangers and Liberty.
Roy