Barclays Center contines to pile up honors

On Wednesday night, at the annual Sports Business Journal awards ceremony, Barclays Center was named the "Sports Facility of the Year" Accepting the award was Brett Yormark who thanked Bruce Ratner "for his vision and his passion."

“It was quite a journey," said Yormark, adding that the Barclays Center has held 157 events, nearly one-third Nets games, attracting 1.7 million people since opening with a series of Jay-Z concerts on September 28. "This is a culmination of an incredible journey, and it really is quite humbling."

The award marks quite a turnaround for the Nets. Only three years ago, IZOD Center was voted the worst sports facility in the country in a poll of SBJ readers.

It's the third award for the arena in the last two weeks. On May 17, Architizer Magazine named Barclays Center its "building of the year" in architecture. Three days later, the billion dollar arena won top honors for economic development in the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce’s annual "Building Brooklyn" awards.

"There isn’t a city in the world that wouldn’t beg for Barclays Center," Chamber President Carlo Scisurra said. "It’s in the hundreds of millions of dollars what that means to the borough annually."

• Barclays Center Wins Sports Facility Of The Year - Sports Business Daily
• Go Brooklyn: SHoP Architects’ Barclays Center Wins Architizer A+ Building Of the Year Award - Architizer Magazine
• Barclays Center among Brooklyn's newest architectural standouts honored by Chamber of Commerce - Jason Sheftell - New York Daily News