It’s the first piece of the new ‘ecosystem’ the Tsais are creating at the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic and beyond. What’s it mean for the future.
There’s a lot happening in and around Barclays Center … and we’re not only talking about what’s going on on-court.
Three weeks ago, BSE Global, Joe and Clara Wu Tsai’s parent company, announced a $100 million program to “enhance” the fan experience at the arena, now 12 years old and in need of upgrades. Not a lot of details yet other than vague representations about “creating a dynamic, communal gathering space,” and “upgrading arena entrances” and “adding to existing premium spaces.”
At the same time, Sam Zussman, BSE Global’s CEO, told Bloomberg News about his and the Tsais’ vision of making the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic a “destination” built on an “ecosystem,” of conventional brick-and-mortar additions like restaurants and new entertainment venues, even a hotel, conference center, marketplace plus connective tissue like a proprietary media network to draw audiences to the overall arts and cultural scene in Brooklyn, a clothing line … and even a wine club.
Overall, Bloomberg reported, ownership wants a Brooklyn entertainment district modeled on the Lakers’ highly successful LA Live — advertised as “the most entertaining place on the planet.” It’s centered on crypto.com arena, home of the Lakers.
Out of the spotlight, BSE Global also acquired interests in two iconic Brooklyn venues, the Brooklyn Paramount Theatre an art deco hall that seats 2,700 and the landmarked vaulted retail space at the base of the Williamsburgh Savings Bank that once served as the location for Brooklyn Flea, the revered designers’ marketplace. Both are within easy walking distance of the arena.
While a lot of what is planned remains, as noted, vague, the first iteration of the Tsais’ plan is now open for business. Indeed the Brooklyn Wine Club offers yes, a taste of what BSE Global sees for the future.
In short, that vision could be described this way: think globally, act locally, as Shanon Ferguson, BSE’s Chief Hospitality Officer, suggested in speaking with NetsDaily last week. Ferguson is in charge of the company’s emerging hospitality business including the Wine Club and everything from restaurants and clubs and maybe even that hotel.
“They emphasize the opportunity to engage and build additional, complementary businesses tapping into the spirit of Brooklyn,” Ferguson said said of the Tsais and Zussman, his boss and where the Wine Club fits. “Be it through sports or fashion or food, music and the arts, they are looking much more global in nature through the lens of Brooklyn. and it’s created an identity that I feel people are really going to latch on to. So it’s not just about the commitment they have now to Brooklyn, it’s about what’s happening in the future.”
While Ferguson and Zussman speak about how the larger plan will enhance all fans’ — and other visitors’ — experience, a lot of it will undeniably cater to high-rollers, which in New York and the emerging sports experience is hardly surprising. Sports owners are constantly looking for ways to differentiate their in-house product from highly produced televised and streamed sports.
The Wine Club, for example, will offer memberships at a base price of $1,500 a year and will include events at Barclays Center clubs and bars. particularly The Crown Club restaurant and new event spaces, The Toki Row and JetBlue at The Key, but also something much broader: things like trips to wine growing regions, exclusive tastings.
“We’re going to be doing events outside the arena as well,” Ferguson explained. “Whether it’s collaborated with a Michelin-rated chef, whether it’s in collaboration with a local spot dedicated to the Brooklyn community or if we want to do something that’s a little more traveling in nature should we want to go to South America, we want to go to Burgundy, we’ve got the ability to do that as well.”
Club members will also get sommelier — wine steward — service both in-suite and courtside and, ultimately, Ferguson promises, even in the upper deck for those fans seeking what he called “an approachable price point.”
“Our next project that we’re looking at is in the upper concourse,” he said. “There’s going to be an association to this as well. It’s going to be an experience at an elevated level that everyone is going to have access to and wine will be a nice complementary part of that.“
The “association” aspect, through a “Brooklyn lens”, as it were, will be big part of the larger experience. It all applies to Zussman’s stated desire to send visitors home believing “I had a great day,”
“Moving forward, we want to do larger events, we really want to take the community by storm,” said Ferguson. “We want to be able to do a Brooklyn Food and Wine Festival. We want to have something where we can have thousands of people spread their wings to really experience Brooklyn.”
Ferguson talks about how wine will flow through all of the Hospitality Group, “whether we do a hotel, whether we do a marketplace, whether we do an location-based entertainment venues all of which would be outside of the arena, wine will be present in all of those.”
Wine is a good starting point for the overall initiative, he says in large part because Joe Tsai and Oliver Weisberg who runs the Tsai family investment office (and is an alternate governor of the Nets, are “oenophiles,” aka wine-lovers. Tsai in fact just bought plots in one of France’s most expensive wine regions. Starting small while starting from a base you’re familiar with. So is the increasing availability of spaces.
“We have an ownership group that is passionate about wine and we have some remarkable spaces in the arena we could stand up rather quickly and create exceptional experiences and we really wanted to do something I’d say a bit more non-traditional in the world of wine and we wanted to do it first. “
More than that, BSE Global has hired 20 sommeliers or wine stewards — not an insignificant number — to handle requests “whether you are sitting in the upper concourse or you’re down there in Crown Club and you’ve got your feet on the wood,” a reference to courtside seating.
Moreover, the Wine Club taps into some of BSE’s underlying themes as a business: Brooklyn, ambition and aggressiveness whether it’s at the billion dollar arena or in Paris, where last year the Brooklyn Nets set up Brooklyn-themed events surrounding a pre-Olympic game vs. the Cavaliers or in suburban Montreal where the Long Island Nets will play six “home games” in hopes of mining French-speaking Canada for Brooklyn fans. (Dismiss it if you will, but the NBA says the Nets are the third most popular team in both France and China. That didn’t happen by accident.)
The larger possibilities, says Ferguson in his role as chief hospitality officer, are unlimited.
“So thankfully, we’ve got the opportunity to get into some of these spaces and we’re ally excited at Brooklyn Hospitality to have oversight of what [Zussman] had mentioned in the coming months and the years BSE Enterprises will announce the new venues that will focus on niche and exclusive forms of entertainment,” he said. “Just to throw a couple out there, such as magic or comedy or circus and potentially market places that will ultimately allow us to round out a full array of complimentary assets under the BSE umbrella.”
Beyond the Merlots and Malbecs, the other pieces of the proposed “district” will take months or even years to roll out as Ferguson noted. The biggest, still not settled by a long shot and not something BSE Global executives want to talk about, is the mysterious hotel both Zussman and Ferguson have hinted about. If built, it would be part of the Hospitality Group.
The hotel could very well be located across the street from Barclays Center where the abandoned Modell’s sporting goods store and P.C. Richards sit now. There are plans for a two-tower multi-use building there, one 910 feet the other 450 feet, the latter described by Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report as a possible site for a hotel. Indeed, a hotel was approved as part of the original land use plan around the arena … and there are already (undisclosed) architectural plans for the towers. Both would have significant LED signage, just like the LA Live! model.
If LA Live! is the model, as Bloomberg reported, it presents some intriguing possibilities for a Brooklyn district. The various venues at the $3 billion facility in downtown Los Angeles attract more than 20 million visitors a year and host “the GRAMMYs, EMMYs, American Music Awards, ESPYs, and a years worth of red carpet premieres,” the promotions state. Like the Atlantic Yards project around Barclays Center, it has its critics.
And it all begins with a wine club.