The Long Island Nets will be back in Montreal next week for the final two games of their home-away-from-home experiment. How’d it go? So far, so good, says Morgan Taylor, who runs the G League team.
The Long Island Nets will play their final two games in Montreal next week, the end of their “Les Nets” experiment that has already seen the team play four “home” games at Place Bell in suburban Laval.
But will the experiment, deemed a huge success by Long Island and BSE Global officials, be the end of the team’s relationship with French-speaking Canada and Groupe CH, the parent of the Montreal Canadiens? Maybe not, suggests Morgan Taylor, who runs the G League affiliate for BSE Global.
“Our on-court play has been exciting. Our four games we had in Montreal were all close, and it’s been fun. How do we follow it up? We’re still evaluating our partnership and seeing what it looks like year-over-year and what it looks like next year,” said Taylor, the Vice President of Basketball Operations of the New York Liberty and Long Island Nets.
“Hopefully, I have some more updates for you over the next couple of months, but it’s taking away some of the marketing and fanfare that we saw in Montreal and bringing that to Long Island.”
Long Island scheduled six home games at the Place Bell in unique arrangement for a G League team: Two games in January, two in February, and two in March, all of them home games on the Long Island schedule. The Nets’ and the Canadiens’ parent organizations set out to do this for a couple of simple reasons: for BSE Global and both the Long Island and Brooklyn Nets, it was about growing their fanbase in French-speaking Canada, part of their international ambitions. For Groupe CH and the Canadiens, it’s about testing the waters for an expansion NBA team in Montreal.
In speaking exclusively with NetsDaily last week, Taylor spoke about the success of the Canada trip, working with Groupe CH, and what could be next for the Long Island Nets organization, whether in Canada or elsewhere.
As a trip, so far it’s been “wildly successful,” Taylor told ND. “We anticipated having a sellout for our purposes, a sellout for all six games, and we already had it for four games. We set our attendance record with the first game against the Raptors 905, with 7,700 people in attendance in Laval, QC. It’s been successful for us. We sold specialized merchandise up there as well, and we sold out in our first two games. We’re looking forward to our final two in Montreal in a couple of weeks. It’s been great.”
In fact, during the first Montreal game, Long Island broke their home attendance record with 7,700 fans filling Place Bell. Since then, they’ve managed to stay around that mark for their next three games in Canada, averaging a bit over 6,600 with two to go. “It was wonderful to see how a new country embraced us from Long Island,” Taylor told ND.
BSE Global’s international marketing operation is unrelenting whether in China, France … or Canada. It’s indeed one of the organization’s strengths. According to NBA data and private analysis, the Brooklyn Nets are the third most popular NBA team in both France and China. Last year, the NBA estimated that the Nets had 53.6 million fans worldwide. That’s a positive for, among other things, recruiting top-notch free agents who want the international limelight not just for endorsement deals, but increasingly for investment opportunities.
Moreover, as one Nets official told us last year, “There may be an opportunity as you’re building a fan base to monetize those fans and in ways that don’t exist today,”
It’s not much of a stretch to think that French-speaking Canada could be an attractive region to mine for the Nets. Montreal, after all, is almost equidistant from New York and Toronto whose culture is more English-speaking. Joe Tsai, it also should be noted, is a Canadian citizen having spent part of his childhood in Vancouver and until recently, Jordi Fernandez was head coach of Team Canada. And this isn’t the Brooklyn Nets first foray into Quebec. They played on Groupe CH’s bigger stage in Montreal, the Bell Centre, in a preseason game back in 2018.
To make things more interesting, Long Island scheduled Toronto’s Raptors 905 as their first opponent in Canada. Despite Canadian loyalty, the fan breakdown was about 50-50, according to those who were at the game. “Les Nets,” after all, were the home team.
“There was a little bit of confusion from fans on who to cheer for, but it was evident that they knew we were playing as their home team,” Taylor told ND. “It was great to see. We sold out of our merchandise, and we sold jerseys for the first time as well in franchise history, so our players were excited to see the fans in our ‘Les Nets’ jerseys.”
Unlike Brooklyn’s trip to Paris a little more than a year ago, the Long Island trip to Montreal wasn’t an extravaganza. When Brooklyn’s Nets were in Paris, they made it a point to bring some of Brooklyn over to France. This included some authentic Brooklyn pizza, which was served at a Brooklyn Pizzeria outside of the stadium where the Nets and Cavs played. There was also an orchestral performance of Biggie’s music at a sold-out Paris venue.
Taylor told ND that the focus in Montreal was making city the “Nets home” when they were there. “I think the biggest thing was looking at changing our name,” says Taylor. “The G-League has unique opportunities for teams to kind of take on a new identity. So we took on Montreal and the culture and turned our name into ‘Les Nets,’ for the stint of our six games.”
The Long Island Nets also hosted basketball clinics with their full team in attendance to help make themselves known that they were Montreal’s home team and they used their Canadiens connection.
“There were also a lot of synergies with the Canadiens,” Taylor added. “We know how popular hockey is in Canada. So, we had a few of our players go to the Canadiens game. We wanted to make sure we were enriched in the culture there.”
For the Canadiens and their owners, the Molson family, an NBA expansion team would be a natural. As the league mulls possible new cities, the most-talked about possibilities are Seattle and Las Vegas, but there’s also been some buzz about Montreal and Mexico City.
“They are a temple in the sports industry, and it’s been great,” said Taylor of Groupe CH and the Canadiens. “The partnership and synergies between BSEG Global and Groupe CH, you can tell they’re a lot from a business standpoint. We both own multiple venues and multiple teams. So, they were excited about bringing basketball to Montreal, and it’s great that we were able to help support them with that.”
Ultimately, there will be a couple of aspects of the trip that will determine which way things will go, Taylor said.
“Just comparing expenses and revenues from a day-to-day, game-to-game, basis from what we generate on Long Island. Also, wanting to make sure that Groupe CH was able to test the operations of putting on a game,” said Taylor. “From a non-metrics standpoint, looking at what the player experience was, making sure that it was still seamless, from that perspective. Also, making sure that we were culturally able to put ourselves in that position where Montreal felt like this was a home game for them, and I think we completed that.”
As of right now, Taylor tells ND that they’re keeping Montreal and Long Island separate, but there will be an opportunity to purchase some “Les Nets” merchandise on Fan Appreciation Night March 29th at Nassau Coliseum.
Too often, NBA teams have had limited horizons for their G League affiliates. They’ve been about development on the basketball side and to experiment with rules like the Elam Ending, etc.. But Brooklyn has taken it further, using their G League team in an attempt to open up international horizons for the big club.
“The G-League is at the forefront for being the testing ground of the NBA,” Taylor told ND. “And for the sports industry as a whole. So, to play a part in that has been tremendous.
“The goal of the project was to take on Montreal and make it feel like we were Montreal’s home team for the six games. They embraced us well, and it’s been fun.”