The Nets are about to embark on a season where the lottery is the goal and draft picks are the endgame. It’s a smart move, but a hard sell.
At least for today.
That’s part of why they’re playing the long game, with young rookies on the floor and young fans off it.
The Nets are aiming to cultivate generational fandom.
And the latest example of that came this week with the long-awaited opening of the Brooklyn Basketball Training Center, right across from Barclays Center.
For BSE Global — the parent company of the Nets, Liberty and Barclays Center — this building is key to building a young fan base.
“It’s huge,” BSE Global CEO Sam Zussman told The Post. “Then you’re a fan. Yeah, I mean, think about what made you a fan. Sometimes it’s the parents coming home, bringing a ball to someone, and all of a sudden they’re a fan of that team. It’s the smallest things. And this is super, super organic. It also pulls the parents in.”
The cold, hard fact is the tanking Nets are going to lose games this season, with winning the lottery a successful result. They’re not converting adult fans from the established Knicks, so they’re targeting a different younger demographic.
The Nets are looking to keep putting down roots in the community after moving from New Jersey, and the Brooklyn Basketball Training Center is an example. Located on Flatbush Ave. on the former site of Modell’s, it’ll serve kids aged 6-17 and be the hub of the larger Brooklyn youth program that includes free training at local schools and paid training at the center.
And of course, it’ll introduce kids to the Nets.
“Your kid comes, says, ‘I want to watch a Nets game’. Good luck telling him or her anything else, right?” Zussman said. “So, I think it’s a way to engage the entire family. It’s the most organic way to do it. Because this is what we do, right?”
Through their partnership with the Department of Education, the Nets provided clinics to 40,000 kids last year in Brooklyn. The new center will be an 18,600-square-foot chunk of outreach, with Nets owner Joe Tsai, wife Clara, minority owner David Koch Jr. and others on hand for Thursday’s ribbon cutting.
“One of the greatest barriers to success is access,” Brooklyn Deputy Borough President Kim Council said at the ribbon cutting. “Our children need to see and they need to be able to visualize themselves in certain spaces. So I’m incredibly thankful to Joe and Clara Tsai for their investment, not just 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 bigger location, say, three years from now, the plan is it’ll grow the way the Nets hope the young fan base grows.
In a way, they hope the rebuilding team mirrors that.
The Nets made an NBA-record five first-round picks in June. While it was tough for fans to truly buy into last season’s 26-56 roster filled with players who were mere placeholders, this season they can invest in a group of young rookies who will grow up before their eyes over the next few years in Brooklyn.
“We started this dream years ago. We had Kyrie (Irving) and Kevin Durant,” Zussman told the Post. “What I’d say is, you’re right in the fact that the team now is probably more relatable to someone young, right? Because they see ‘Oh my God, they have 18-, 19-year-old players and they’ll grow up here.’ ”
After the Nets had contact five-on-five on the first two days of camp, Friday was a non-contact recovery day.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
