Hip hop superstar Jay-Z is hoping to get current New York Knicks fans to switch their team loyalty to the New Jersey Nets (now the Brooklyn Nets as of this morning), of which the rap star is part owner, with the majority owner being Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov. The Nets are set to move to Brooklyn next fall and Jay-Z is on a press rampage, hoping to steal some lower Manhattan Knicks fans for his team.
The Nets will make their move over to the Barclays Center next September, and Jay-Z announced the team’s new name – the Brooklyn Nets – this morning. The music icon is also scheduled to personally and officially open the new basketball arena with a concert there next year. “This is where I’m from and opening this arena will mean a lot to me,” he said.
All of this new hype makes the team primed for some good old PR. Nets CEO Brett Yormark explained, “Jay-Z will be the face of the team’s fourth-quarter campaign” to help sell the 4,400 All-Access premium seats at the 18,000-seat arena.
This is the first time the high-profile star will use his own brand and image to market Nets tickets. The plan is to target Wall Streeters and residents of the city’s upscale neighborhoods like TriBeCa and SoHo with an advertising arsenal to include billboards, 150 taxi tops, 60 telephone kiosks, and an impressive 250,000 coffee cups to be distributed amog local stores. “We’ll be blanketing Wall Street with the coffee cups,” said Yormark.
Ticket prices run from $99 a game in the lower level to $1,500 for courtside seats. Season tickets range from $4,356 to $66,000 with season packages to include perks like free food and having priority buying for non-Nets events like concerts and boxing matches.
Additionally, the team will use the slogan, “Get all access to Jay-Z and other events at the Barclays Center” to promote the new arena, accompanied by a photo of Jay-Z and an arena rendering.
“The message is that the Barclays Center is much more than basketball,” Yormark said. “There will be great concerts and other entertainment – so who better to deliver that message than the world’s No. 1 entertainer, Jay-Z?”
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