Steph Curry dropped by Brooklyn last night and drew 18,413 basketball fans to Barclays Center, the biggest crowd ever for a Nets game in the borough. It’s the highlight of a season that despite a lot of losing, injuries and roster changes has not been a calamity for attendance at Barclays Center.
Privately, in hushed tones, the people who run the Brooklyn Nets admit that they’re quite surprised that fans are continuing to support the team they way they have despite the rebuild, reboot, er tank.
Maybe you can rebuild in New York after all.
So far this season, the Nets have averaged 17,372 customers over 30 home games. That puts them 25th in the NBA, but here’s a couple of notes: 1) that number represents 98.0% of capacity at Barclays Center and 2) it isn’t that different from last year when the Nets were hoping to contend. The Nets averaged 17,584 for the season in 2023-24. That represented 99.1% of capacity. In fact, Brooklyn placed 21st last season.
It is even a bit more (by 18 fans) than the average attendance in 2021-22, the height of the Big Three era,
Yes, there are ticket promotions and yes, fans from other teams often make a lot of noise in Barclays, not wanting to be gouged at MSG and yes, there’s tourists but the bottom line is that the BSE Global bottom line hasn’t suffered much at all. It’s a mix of fans, as Shara Taylor reported after the Knicks game:
Why should that matter to fans? Here’s one reason: If ownership and management feared a calamitous financial result from a rebuild and it didn’t happen, would that factor into whether they’d be patient enough to try their luck again next year, extending the rebuild? Patience has worked so far.
There was plenty of doubt last season about attendance prospects. As fans pushed for a rebuild, the response from on high was that rebuilding is something that pro teams in New York simply don’t do. The widely held belief was that with so much competition for the city’s sports and entertainment dollar, a losing team will be shunted aside.
indeed, there was a historical precedent to rely on: the Nets first rebuild under Sean Marks which culminated in the 2018-19 season. Brooklyn finished with 42 wins and the sixth seed in the East that season. Despite that and the soon-to-be-fulfilled promise of bigger things that summer, the Nets drew only 15,556 fans a night, filling only 84.3% of Barclays Center. They finished 30th and dead last in the NBA in a number of attendance categories. That year, in fact, the Nets in fact drew an average of 17,687 fans to road games!
So how did the Nets retain a fan base at least for the first year of a rebuild? Anecdotally, many fans have accepted, even embraced, the idea of out-with-old, in-with-the-new. After the Big Quit ended the Big Three dream and Mikal Bridges didn’t feel comfortable with role of franchise player. So why not? The coach is very good. They had a lot of picks and cap space. I can live with it.
Beyond that, though, there are other reasons for the success, starting with a very aggressive marketing campaign at BSE Global, one with some interesting subtexts.
Andrew Karson, Executive Vice President of Marketing at BSE Global, told ND in a statement that the Nets have prioritized certain elements, starting with what BSE calls “cultivating generational fandom,” that is directing a lot of marketing at young fans — the 8-to-12 year-olds, hoping that they will grow into adult fans. Mikal Prokhorov may have claimed the Nets would “turn Knicks fans into Nets fans” but that never worked. So this ownership and management is basically starting from scratch, with special programs aimed at New York’s younger set in particular.
The other part of the strategy is community, Karson added. Nets as Brooklyn, not just a basketball team. That has to help when there’s so often heavy turnover in a rebuild.
“We’ve brought the Nets directly into the community in differentiated ways, including activating at parks and streetball tournaments, increasing our number of Brooklyn Basketball youth clinics and events.” said Karson.
Karson pointed to other aspects of the Nets community strategy, like “celebrating the diversity of Brooklyn through the Nets Unite platform” with events like Chinese New Year, PRIDE, Juneteeth and Hoops for Troops, which honors U.S. military members and veterans.
That’s all the target, and the means is story-telling, and that’s meant a dramatic jump in their internally produced videos. The players they profile may not be stars, and a number won’t even be around next season, but Karson thinks the team can focus on their personalities in everyman features.
“We have prioritized storytelling around our players and showcasing their unique personalities and journeys to our fans,” said Karson, who came to BSE Global from Madison Square Garden four years ago. “This includes an emphasis on short-form content on TikTok and longer form franchises like From ___ to Brooklyn, Year Two and The Bridge on YouTube. We’ve invested in family and community-centric programming, like enhancing our Kids Games at Barclays Center.”
Beyond online content that might appeal to younger fans — and get their parents to make a financial commitment, the Nets parent company is also going into the community to find fans.
The effort is extensive as this promotion of upcoming camps show. The Nets are also reportedly converting space at the shuttered Modell’s sporting good store across from Barclays into a six-court community basketball center, at least until the property gets bull-dozed for a couple of high-rises.
The Nets and BSE Global have ingratiated themselves into the borough’s youth culture in more subtle ways beyond basketball clinics and ticket giveaways. For instance, The Joe and Clara Wu Tsai Foundation has funded the inclusion of a Jean-Michel Basquiat curriculum in New York’s public schools. Basquiat has been the inspiration for Nets uniform jerseys, among other things.
Just this week, as we reported, the Nets sponsored a free STEM event for New York public and charter school students in grades 3 through 8, highlighted by Cam Johnson’s presence
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And every single one of the kids in each of these clinics and programs comes away with heavily branded Brooklyn Nets merchandise. Same with community groups who the Nets host at Barclays. Doing well while doing good.
There’s a lot we don’t know about internal data. That’s proprietary, a company secret. How many fans actually attend the games — the closely guarded turnstile data? How many tickets are sold vs. distributed? Are concessions robust? If we knew those numbers, we’d no doubt have a better indication of the team’s financial health. (The owner is fine.) That said, people are continuing to go to games whether from Bensonhurst or Berlin.
There’s one other thing beyond the marketing data or the team’s record. The arena has now been woven into the city and borough as it wasn’t back in 2019 or earlier, says Irina Pavlova, the former president of ONEXIM Sports and Entertainment when the arena was brand-new
“It’s been hugely rewarding to see Barclays Center come into its own. There’s a whole new generation that has grown up with ‘the Clays’ as an integral part of their lives,” said Pavlova. “And, of course, as the home of the WNBA champions, the New York Liberty, it is now firmly woven into the fabric of the city. Hopefully the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy will find its way to Barclays before long as well.”
It’d be easier to market the team then!
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