It’s pocket change to him, just buy it.

Don’t really see him buying the team. Also don’t see why Ratner would dump controlling interest if the Brooklyn move goes through. Why waste all the time and effort not to enjoy the fruits of your labor? Unless he’s flat broke, which given my review of FCE I don’t believe is the case, makes little sense.

This article states that Prkhorov buying the team isn’t true. Its obvious that being associated with this transaction will bring him unwanted negative attention back home.

@A.M.,

The reasoning (as I understand it) is that selling most or all of his share in the team open his finances up to build the rest of the Atlantic Yards development. Keep in mind, that’s the real motivation for him. But it keeps bringing up the question “why is there such a mandate to build the arena if the surrounding development is the real prize?” That has never been fully explained.

The team will wear dark drab socialist uniforms with just numbers, borscht will be the post game spread, Bobby Simmons will be in Siberia, No softball or bowling in camp, just marching

Ratner is interested in selling part of the team. He needs the money. It has been reported that Viola wants to buy a controlling interest. That hasn’t been denied. Whether Ratner wants to sell is the issue. I have no idea what is going on with Prokhorov. I have told his interest is real, but note his PR person denied that he wants to BUY the team. That’s not a denial of interest in investing in it.

As for the arena first, it should be quite obvious why. The arena is the centerpiece and is that part of the project easiest to move forward. Do you really really think that Ratner is not going to build out the full project? That is the critics’ propaganda. The money is in the rental apartments. Ratner took ten years to build out MetroTech. It was supposed to take less time, but it got built because he had the approvals.

As for FCE, one thing rarely mentioned is that they specialize in urban redevelopment which is ALWAYS more difficult than clearing some vacant land in the suburbs and putting up a building or buildings. They have experience and they have patience in these kinds of projects.

From his wikipedia…

“There’s a global tendency to report that Mikhail Prokhorov is becoming a strategic investor of some companies or sport clubs with deep financial problems in order to attract an interest to their activities. New Jersey Nets and FC Roma are also in the list.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Prokhorov

I think this is bunk.

I think he is interested in investing, but right now any investor would have to be wary because of the uncertainty attached to Brooklyn.

The Nets think they could be the Mets of the New York region…not quite the Yankees, but damn profitable and conveniently located that they become the outer boroughs’ Long Island’s team while retaining some of their Jersey base.

If the arena is the easiest part of this project to get done, then we’re never gonna see full buildout. It has only been SIX years since the Brooklyn move was announced, and no vertical construction has begun. If anything, the arena seems to be the one part of the project holding up everything else.

And if the money is in the apartments, retail and office space, wouldn’t those hold top priority over an arena in an already over-saturated sports market where a mainstay like the Yankees aren’t pulling in the money from their stadium as they expected? Come on, Net Income, I was born on Sunday, but not last Sunday…

at Net Income:

“The Nets think they could be the Mets of the New York region…not quite the Yankees, but damn profitable and conveniently located that they become the outer boroughs’ Long Island’s team while retaining some of their Jersey base.”

Once agin let me point out how far-fetched this concept is. In baseball, half the city hated the Yankees because they were National League fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers or NY Giants before their respective moves. As far as the NBA goes, New York City is almost completely unified as NY Knicks fans (save for the Lakers-Celtics and LeBron fans). Moreover a lot of people in NYC don’t even like the NBA while baseball is clearly the most popular sport in the area year-round.

There is NO DEMAND for another NBA team in New York City. The Nets have become New Jersey’s team since they moved there one-year into their NBA existence. Aside from a small group of people like me, nobody has paid them any attention within the five boroughs and that will continue to be the case. The only way that will not be so is if they somehow get LeBron at which point the Nets will have the biggest group of bandwagon fans in the entire country never mind the greater NYC area.

Please realize this is the truth already!

Thanks for clearing up some points, fellas.

just remember….. all that market talk…. goes rite out the window if King James comes…. then Brooklyn will have a world of its own… one of which the city wuld die to have

dont hate a man who’s still dreaming LOL