Jay-Z Working to Make the Nets More Glamorous

The New Jersey Nets are moving to Brooklyn next season, and even though they may still be awful at the game of basketball, minority team owner and rap mogul Jay-Z wants the experience of watching them in person to be a luxurious (read: wildly and needlessly expensive) one. From the WSJ: “As the Nets prepare to move to their new home in downtown Brooklyn, Jay-Z will headline the Barclays Center’s grand opening in September with a concert. And while the team declined to disclose his ownership percentage, which is considered to be small, this much is clear: His influence, particularly when it comes to style and branding, far outweighs his financial stake in the franchise. ‘I don’t tell Jay-Z to do anything,’ said Brett Yormark, the CEO of Barclays Center and the Nets. ‘I mean that. He tells me what to do. Listen, when it comes to our engagement, let’s just say he’s the CEO.’ The Nets are celebrating the role that he’s played in everything from revamping the logo (‘He’s refreshed it,’ Yormark said) to designing new uniforms (‘His fingerprints are all over it’) to coming up with a new color scheme (‘A bold redirection’), all of which the team plans to unveil this spring. In addition, the Nets are set to begin marketing 11 luxury suites that will be known as ‘The Vault at Barclays Center,’ a small, high-end space on the event level of the arena. Yes, Jay-Z chose the forks—in addition to offering his input on the Champagne ($300 bottles of Armand de Brignac), the layout (asymmetrical) and much of the décor (lots of black and shimmering metallics). […] The suites themselves, which are still under construction, will be unabashedly bold—and that includes the price tag: $550,000 per year, with a minimum three-year term. That works out to $45,833 per month, instantly making them some of the most expensive rental properties in the city. The tenants of each suite will receive eight tickets in the first 10 rows to all Barclays Center events, including Nets games, other sporting events, concerts and family shows. Yormark said he hopes to book 220 events per year. So here’s some rough math: If each event averages five hours, that means tenants will be paying $500 per hour—or about $8.33 per minute—for access to The Vault. ‘It enables us to appeal to a different demographic,’ Yormark said. […] Indeed, while Barclays Center will feature 100 suites in different parts of the arena (average annual lease: $267,000), The Vault was conceived as a collection of uber-suites, part club scene and part Kasbah, replete with a VIP entrance framed by a 15-foot sheer curtain. The first tenant? Jay-Z himself.”