Barclays Center

• 1. Introduction

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  Barclays Center opened its doors on the 28th of September 2012 with a Jay-Z concert, bringing major league sports back to Brooklyn for the first time since the Brooklyn Dodgers left for Los Angeles in 1957. That gap had lasted more than half a century. The arena sits at Atlantic Avenue in Prospect Heights, wrapped in 12,000 preweathered steel panels meant to call to mind Brooklyn's brownstones, its foundation sunk below street grade so passersby on the plaza outside can look down through the glass and see the scoreboard. What brought this building into existence was not a simple real estate transaction. It was a years-long fight over eminent domain, public money, demolished homes, a British bank's naming deal that got cut nearly in half, and an architect who said publicly he did not think the project would survive. How it finally got built, and what happened once it opened, is a story that touches every corner of Brooklyn life.

• 2. The Ratner Vision

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  Bruce Ratner of Forest City Ratner Companies purchased the New Jersey Nets in 2004 for $300 million, not because he wanted to run a basketball team but because owning the franchise was the entry point to building a commercial and residential redevelopment in Brooklyn's Prospect Heights. The idea was that an arena would anchor the larger Pacific Park development. Ratner eventually sold most of his shares to keep funding the project. The plan carried an early, optimistic projection: the arena would open in 2006.

  There was a strange historical echo built into the site. The original proposal for a domed stadium for the Brooklyn Dodgers had been located just north of the Pacific Park site, where the Atlantic Terminal Mall, also owned by Forest City Ratner, now stands. Moving the Nets to Brooklyn was not just an economic bet. It closed a loop that had been open since 1957.

  The project's original architect, Frank Gehry, drew plans that included a rooftop park for residents of the complex, an outdoor running track capable of converting to an ice rink in winter, panoramic views of Manhattan, and a tower called Miss Brooklyn standing 620 feet tall. Gehry's scheme carried a projected cost of $1 billion. Forest City Ratner unveiled a scaled-back version in February 2008, cutting Miss Brooklyn's height by 40 percent and trimming it by 109 feet. A second redesign two months later removed Miss Brooklyn entirely. By January 2009 the developer had moved into cost-cutting mode, which the team called "value engineering."

• 3. A Project on the Brink

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  In March 2009, Frank Gehry said publicly, "I don't think it is going to happen." That was not the only reason to doubt the project. The Great Recession had dried up financing. Eminent domain disputes had triggered multiple lawsuits. Businesses and residential buildings, including the Ward Bakery and Freddy's bar, faced demolition. Community group Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn kept the pressure on, and a parallel eminent domain case against Columbia University threatened to revive their challenge if the appellate court ruled in Columbia's favor.

  The legal calendar became the project's lifeline. The New York Supreme Court ruled for Ratner on the 16th of May 2009. Opponents scheduled an appeal hearing for the 14th of October 2009, with a decision not due before the 25th of November. Russian businessman Mikhail Prokhorov then agreed on the 23rd of September 2009 to a $200 million deal to become a principal owner of the Nets and a key investor in the arena, injecting new capital at a critical moment.

  On the 24th of November 2009, the New York Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the state's use of eminent domain, and Empire State Development Corporation Vice President Warner Johnston said "we can now move forward with development." Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Abraham Gerges struck down the remaining property-owner challenge on the 1st of March 2010. Groundbreaking followed ten days later, on the 11th of March 2010. The first concrete poured into the foundation came on the 29th of June 2010. Vertical steel construction began on the 23rd of November 2010. The arena topped out on the 12th of January 2012.

• 4. Money, Names, and Ownership

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  Barclays Bank announced the naming rights deal on the 18th of January 2007. The bank agreed to pay $400 million over 20 years, a figure that eclipsed the previous record for an American indoor arena: the $185 million over 20 years that Royal Philips Electronics had paid in 1999 for Philips Arena in Atlanta. The deal was renegotiated by the end of 2009 and came in at somewhat more than $200 million, roughly half the original agreement, after the economy collapsed. Barclays has no retail branches in the United States and does not operate its own ATMs inside the arena.

  The arena is formally owned by the Brooklyn Arena Local Development Corporation, a public entity of New York State's Empire State Development authority. It is leased to the private Brooklyn Events Center LLC for $1.00. Because the structure is publicly owned, its financing qualified for tax-exempt bonds, which were issued in 2009 for a total of $510,999,996.50.

  Ownership of the sports operations shifted over time. On the 18th of September 2019, Joe Tsai completed his acquisition of full ownership of the Brooklyn Nets and Barclays Center, becoming NBA Governor and Chairman of the arena. That same day, David Levy was named Chief Executive Officer of both the Nets and Barclays Center. Tsai also purchased the WNBA's New York Liberty in 2019 and relocated the team to Barclays Center the following year, with initial game attendance capped at roughly 8,000 tickets.

• 5. Design and Architecture

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  SHoP Architects designed Barclays Center, with Ellerbe Becket/AECOM serving as architect of record. The Becket/SHoP proposal, unveiled in September 2009, carried a projected cost of $800 million that was later revised upward to $1 billion. The arena's exterior is defined by three articulated bands of a glass curtain wall covered by 12,000 preweathered steel panels engineered by ASI Limited/SHoP Construction. The panels were intended to evoke Brooklyn's brownstone rowhouses.

  A 117-by-56-foot oculus extends over a 5,660-square-foot section of the main entrance plaza. An irregularly shaped display screen loops along the interior face of the oculus. The arena floor sits below street grade, which means people standing on the plaza above can look in and see the scoreboard without entering the building.

  Inside, two separate lighting systems serve different purposes. The Nets' system creates a theater-like effect where the court is brightly lit while the surrounding bowl darkens. The Nets' court has used a herringbone pattern since the arena opened. Courts installed for other tenants or events do not carry this pattern.

  The arena has no dedicated parking lot, an unusual feature for a major American venue. Access is via subway, bus, and the Long Island Rail Road. The entrance plaza covers 38,885 square feet and contains a $76 million transit connection hub linking to the Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center subway station, which was redesigned by New York City firm Stantec. Two side-by-side elevators, each rated to 80,000 pounds, lower trucks and buses 34 feet below street level into a loading dock area equipped with a turntable that rotates vehicles into position at one of four loading docks.

• 6. The Islanders Experiment

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  On the 24th of October 2012, the New York Islanders announced they would leave Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, their home since the franchise's founding in 1972, and move to Barclays Center beginning with the 2015-16 NHL season. The decision created an immediate structural problem: the arena had been designed primarily for basketball. While it could fit an NHL-size rink, the scoreboard hung off-center above the blue line closer to the arena's southeast end. Hockey capacity was 15,795, the second-smallest in the league, behind Winnipeg's Canada Life Centre. At least 416 seats were not sold because of poor sight lines, and sections 201-204 and 228-231 were labeled by Business Insider as "the worst seats in American professional sports."

  Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark acknowledged the problem in an interview with Sports Illustrated but said there was nothing to be done from a capital improvement standpoint, adding: "You can watch the game on your mobile device. The game is on the scoreboard." The arena also used PVC piping rather than steel piping under the ice surface, making it harder to maintain ice quality to NHL standards. Average Islanders attendance fell to an NHL low of 12,059.

  The first Islanders regular-season game at Barclays took place on the 9th of October 2015, against the Chicago Blackhawks, the reigning Stanley Cup champions, who won 3-2 in overtime. John Tavares scored in the second period, the first Islander to score a regular-season goal in the building. The franchise began seeking a way out of the arena before the end of the decade. The Islanders played what turned out to be their final game at Barclays Center on the 3rd of March 2020, a 6-2 loss to the Montreal Canadiens, before eventually moving to the newly constructed UBS Arena for the 2021-22 season.

• 7. Concerts, Culture, and Controversy

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  According to Billboard magazine, Barclays Center surpassed Madison Square Garden as the highest-grossing venue in the United States for concerts and family shows, excluding sports events, based on ticket sales between the 1st of November 2012 and the 31st of May 2013. That was within the arena's first year of operation.

  The 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, held on the 25th of August 2013, marked the first time that ceremony had taken place in a New York City borough other than Manhattan. The arena hosted SummerSlam in August 2015, with NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn the night before and a post-SummerSlam Raw the following day, producing three consecutive nights of sellouts.

  The ticketing history of the venue reflects a broader industry tension. In July 2021, SeatGeek replaced Ticketmaster as the ticketing provider, breaking what the source describes as Ticketmaster's monopoly over ticketing at New York's major arenas. The arrangement did not last. A New Year's Eve 2021 show by The Strokes experienced presale technical issues that, according to the band's booking agents, cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars; the show ultimately sold 13,548 tickets and grossed $1,570,000, roughly 2,000 tickets and $400,000 below the same band's 2019 New Year's Eve show at the arena. A Genesis show connected to high demand from their The Last Domino? Tour also saw lower than expected sales and was eventually canceled. By January 2023, Ticketmaster had returned.

  On the 25th of February 2015, an ironworker was killed when four joists fell on him while he was helping install the arena's green roof. The arena announced a $150 million renovation in 2024, designed by Populous and Shawmut Design and Construction, with completion estimated by 2026. The renovation includes replacing 30 suites with club spaces called the Row and the Key, a new atrium, new art, and a dedicated entrance for American Express cardholders.

• 8. Art Inside the Arena

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  The building holds a mural by painter José Parlá called Diary of Brooklyn, measuring 10 feet wide and 70 feet tall. Parlá described the work as being about language; it incorporates words and phrases including "immigration," "Brooklyn is," and "Big Daddy Kane." The piece was commissioned in 2012 and took six months to complete.

  On the 2nd of April 2026, Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment announced that Paul Pfeiffer would be the center's inaugural artist-in-residence. Pfeiffer is set to work with Shaun Leonardo and the Social Justice Fund on a year-long project titled Exodus, leading media workshops with people who have been affected by the criminal-justice system. Sarah Sze has been commissioned to create a work called Wave for the center's atrium, consisting of more than 250 screens carrying animated projections and images. The center will also display Mark Bradford's Tina, made in 2006, and Rashid Johnson's Untitled Anxious Audience, made in 2019, near a new entrance on Flatbush Avenue. In May 2027, the center is set to unveil a large-scale sculpture by Kambui Olujimi titled We Always Have Room for One More, depicting larger-than-life bronze figures playing the Brooklyn street game Skelly.