The nets are about to start a season in which the lottery is the goal and the picks are the endgame. It is a smart move, but a difficult sale.
At least for today.
That is part of the reason why they play the long game, with young rookies on the floor and young fans off.
The nets strive for the cultivation of Generationandom.
And the newest example of this came this week with the long -awaited opening of the Brooklyn Basketball Training Center, opposite Barclays Center.
For BSE Global – the parent company of the Nets, Liberty and Barclays Center – this building is the key to building a young fan base.
“It’s huge,” BSE Global CEO Sam Zussman told The Post. “Then you are a fan. Yes, I mean, think about what you have made a fan. Sometimes it is the parents who come home, bring a ball to someone, and suddenly they are a fan of that team. They are the smallest things. And this is super, super organic. It also moves into the parents.”
The cold, hard fact is that the tank nets are losing matches this season, with winning the lottery a successful result. They do not convert adult fans of the established knicks, so they focus on another younger demography.
The nets want to continue to put roots in the community after they have moved from New Jersey, and the Brooklyn Basketball Training Center is an example. Located on Flatbush Ave. On the former site of Modell’s it will serve children aged 6-17 and the HUB will be the larger Brooklyn Youth program with free training at local schools and paid training in the center.
And of course it will get to know the nets.
“Your child comes, says,” I want to watch a Nets game “. Good luck that he tells him or her something else, right?” Zussman said. “So I think it’s a way to involve the whole family. It’s the most organic way to do it. Because this is what we do, right?”
Because of their cooperation with the Ministry of Education, the Nets last year gave clinics to 40,000 children in Brooklyn. The new center will be a piece of lump of Outreach of 18,600 square foot, with NETS owner Joe Tsai, wife Clara, minority owner David Koch Jr. And others at hand for the ribbon cut on Thursday.
“One of the biggest barriers for success is access,” said Brooklyn deputy city chairman Kim Council at the ribbon cut. “Our children have to see it and they must be able to visualize themselves in certain spaces. So I am incredibly grateful for Joe and Clara Tsai for their investment, not only in this facility, but in Brooklyn and the larger community.”
BSE Global has further development plans for the area. Even if the Brooklyn Basketball Training Center moves to a larger location, for example in three years, the plan that it will grow like the nets hope that the young fan base will grow.
In a sense, they hope that the reconstruction team reflects that.
The nets made an NBA record five picks in the first round in June. Although it was difficult for fans to really buy in the 26-56 schedule of last season full of players who were purely temporary temporary time, they can invest this season in a group of young rookies that will grow up in Brooklyn in the coming years.
“We started this dream years ago. We had Kyrie (Irving) and Kevin Durant,” Zussman told The Post. “What I would say is, you are right in the fact that the team is probably more related to someone young, right? Because they see:” Oh my God, they have 18, 19-year-old players and they will grow up here. ” “
After the nets on the first two days of the camp had contact with five-five-five, Friday was a contactless recovery day.
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