After 7.5 Years as BSE Global, Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment Wisely Retakes Original Name, Focusing on Local
"The Brooklyn Way," though, relies on secondhand concepts of "Unfiltered Authenticity" & "Relentless Hustle" Also, hints about One Hanson, but not hotel.
Some 7.5 years after Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment ambitiously—but unwisely—rebranded as BSE Global, the parent of the Brooklyn Nets and the Barclays Center operating company has returned to its original name, asserting they are “a builder and purveyor” of experiences.
Unlike in 2018, when the rebranding came with a press release about “extending its roots beyond Brooklyn,” this one has emerged, so far, with less fanfare. A LinkedIn post Jan. 12 announced the change:
Guided by our purpose to create bold, authentic, and unforgettable experiences that redefine sports, entertainment, and hospitality—The Brooklyn Way—this name reflects who we are, what we stand for, and the communities we serve.
We are energized by this milestone and thrilled to introduce a refreshed brand that is rooted in the energy, creativity and values that make our organization—and borough—so special.
This reflects BSE’s focus on a Brooklyn “ecosystem” of events, venues, and media, with more in the works, as led by Joe Tsai, who took over full ownership in 2019, and CEO Sam Zussman, who joined in mid-2022. (The Koch family in 2024 bought 15% of BSE.)
In other words, the earlier change came from then-majority owner Mikhail Prokhorov and CEO Brett Yormark.
A new brand identity
The website bseglobal.net now resolves to bkse.com. The capsule definition remains constant:
Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment is an entertainment platform committed to creating elevated, innovative and unforgettable experiences, inspired by Brooklyn. Through our state-of-the-art venues, professional sports franchises and emerging businesses, Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment delivers dynamic content and memories for our fans and audiences.
The reboot also comes with a jaunty new brand identity, as shown in the screenshot above.
While it’s superior to the anodyne BSE Global, below, the new logo strikes me as a bit too uneven to supply sufficient gravitas.
Global didn’t work
It’s a wise move to rebrand with Brooklyn, since the initial invocation of global ambitions—”ownership ties to Russia and China; the recent formation of its Advisory Board’s London Chapter… and its naming rights partner from London”—was a stretch, and extensions into Manhattan, such as the renovation of Webster Hall, didn’t work out.
By March 2019, as Prokhorov announced he’d sell the Barclays Center and Nassau Coliseum operating companies to Tsai, I suggested that BSE Global was retreating from its ambitious venue strategy, given, in part, the threat of a competing arena in Nassau County and the company’s stalled plan to revamp the closed Paramount Theater in Brooklyn.
While in May 2018, BSE Global announced a new London chapter to its advisory board, that apparently didn’t last long. In a Sept. 20, 2018 podcast interview, Yormark said they eyed “an entertainment venue” in London. That didn’t happen.
Local’s the focus
Today, even with “ownership ties” to China—well, Tsai has homes in Hong Kong, La Jolla, and Manhattan, even as he runs Alibaba, while wife Clara Wu Tsai focuses on U.S. activities—they’ve doubled down on that Brooklyn “ecosystem,” including:
the investment in media like BK MAG and the youth culture site Type.Set.Brooklyn
their minority investment in the Brooklyn Paramount, renovated by LiveNation (after the Yormark-era BSE renovation failed)
the purchase of the retail condo in the old Williamsburgh Savings Bank tower, One Hanson Place
the ramping up of youth clinics under Brooklyn Basketball, with a new Training Center in the old Modell’s space on Flatbush Avenue opposite the arena
the launch of events like the Planet Brooklyn festival
and an emerging “hospitality business developing several location-based entertainment properties,” according to one job ad
The Brooklyn Way is….?
That said, Our WHY, a new “guide to Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment’s company culture, purpose, and identity” offers some less-than-cutting edge language to define what they call The Brooklyn Way.
(That term, of course, derives from the Biggie Smalls line, “Spread love, it’s the Brooklyn way.”)
“Through significant market research,” BSE says, “we have synthesized The Brooklyn Way into four attributes:”
Unfiltered Authenticity
Relentless Hustle
Audacious Creativity and Self-Expression
Diversity and Inclusive Community
Hmm, have we heard that before? Yes, we have.
Last May, BSE launched “a new digital-first global media brand, Type.Set.Brooklyn, that celebrates music, sports, style, food and pop culture stories through the lens of Brooklyn’s intrinsic values – uninhibited authenticity, relentless hustle, diverse community and audacious creativity and self-expression.”
Okay, then. While I’m hardly the target audience for that youth culture brand, I observed that it was hardly scorching. It still hasn’t broken out.
So, how do they apply those attributes to, say, the Brooklyn Wine Club?
“These attributes are what separate Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment from the pack,” the web site states. “This je ne sais quoi is difficult to pinpoint but has an allure that is undeniable and unforgettable.” (Um, that’s redundant.)
A tiny bit of news
The below sections rely heavily on BSE’s own promotional text, so feel free to skim. I found a couple of nuggets:
yes, the Brooklyn Basketball Training Center is about turning “community” into a business
One Hanson Place is described as offering “premium dining options,” which suggests it will be positioned as a restaurant and/or banquet/event space
though it’s been suggested in the past, BSE didn’t explicitly mention a flagship hotel.
The pyramid
The guide describes a pyramid framework, which I quote verbatim:
The WHY: At the top of the pyramid sits our shared purpose – the reason we come to work each day. This is our North Star.
The WHAT: This section captures our company goals and our road map to achieve long-term success.
The HOW: Our operating model and platform explain how different parts of the business work together. This is the way we organize for achieving our goals collaboratively.
The WHO The foundation of the pyramid is YOU, our people – WHO we are, what we stand for and our shared commitment to our purpose and to one another.
I’m far enough away from—and resistant to—a corporate environment that it’s difficult to assess, so I’ll mainly highlight various elements I found interesting.
Company goals
I quote the company goals verbatim:
Audience Development: Grow our customer base, locally and globally, by acquiring new customers and deepening engagement with existing ones.
Partner Development: Cultivate and deepen relationships with key sponsors, commercial partners, promoters, media and community stakeholders.
Existing Business Growth: Constantly pursue incremental improvement and growth in our existing properties through creativity, innovation and grit.
New Business Creation: Expand and augment our network with new sports, entertainment and hospitality properties and the venues to house them.
Team Performance: Pursue excellence in individual performance, and in team collaboration, so we can win in everything we do, on and off the court.
Audience development
Recognizing that fandom takes hold when kids are eight or nine years old, BSE recognized they needed “to win the hearts of Brooklyn’s children and their families.”
Building on “a handful of community youth clinics per season,” BSE two years ago “decided to more formally invest in our youth through NYC’s vast network of schools,” expanding “to teach clinics in more than 200 Brooklyn schools,” then invested in the new “youth training center” across Flatbush Avene from the Barclays Center.
To build a larger audience, they launched Brooklyn Media, which includes, as the chart below, suggests, Type.Set.Brooklyn, BK Mag, and “Future business.”
The document also crows about creating events and buzz to market the Brooklyn Nets in Paris in 2004, including “a Brooklyn pizza shop, a tribute orchestra to the Notorious B.I.G., specialized merchandise and youth basketball clinics inextricably linking The Brooklyn Way to the City of Lights.”
Partner development
The document salutes “partners who share our values and think creatively about how to activate in ways that will appeal to our audience,” citing Gallagher insurance’s sponsorship of a new premier club, plus “a community angle with the New York Liberty through a leadership training program for hundreds of young women.”
The document cites the development of local food vendors in the arena’s “Brooklyn Market,” some of which have gained permanent spots in the concourse.
“Our relationships with event promoters, forged over years of cultivation, allow us to bring the very best talent to the arena,” the document says.
Hm, that kind of ignores how the arena, according to a federal antitrust lawsuit filed in 2024, was pressured by promoter Live Nation to return to its subsidiary Ticketmaster.
This is interesting:
Strong relationships with our local government officials are equally imperative to our success. New York State is Barclays Center’s landlord and our close collaboration with city and state economic development officials, police, fire and other agencies keeps our patrons safe and paves the way for us to build new businesses, such as the New York Liberty Practice Facility, One Hanson and Brooklyn Basketball Training Center which require multiagency approvals for everything from zoning to parking to liquor licenses, signage requirements and more.
I’d note that strong relationships also mean that illegal parking and idling in the blocks around the arena generally gets waved away, even when it’s egregious.
Such “strong relationships” rely, in part, on lobbying. I’d also note that the arena gains a tax-exempt site and tax-exempt financing, which enormously serves the bottom line. I’ve argued that, in exchange for making the plaza permanent, the arena company could pay.
That’s the Brooklyn Way, too.
Existing business growth: arena renovation
The document cites a “5-year, $100 million arena renovation plan,” which, apparently, has been upgraded to “$140 million renovation,” as per an announcement cited by NetsDaily.
That includes an “updated premium, event-level hospitality space,” replacing the Qatar Airways space, with renovations starting at the end of the Brooklyn Nets’ current season and the club re-opening for the next season. (Here’s the press release, which doesn’t mention the current sponsor.)
It is said to be “inspired by the evolution of Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighborhood.” (Huh?) One fan responded on Twitter/X: “Maybe improve the main concourse and general admission food program which has grown incredibly stale and uninspiring in recent years.”
The BSE document claims, “ Rather than creating more seats to maximize profit, as so many arenas and stadiums do, we are maximizing our current space to accommodate the new type of fan that exists today.”
OK, but that also reflects that the previous model of suites and club seats doesn’t work as well.
Existing business growth: training center
The document also cites “the evolution of Brooklyn Basketball from a community-only focused platform to a viable fee-based business that will add revenue to our bottom line while also serving our goal of audience development.”
Yes, a business with very murky information on financial aid. Hey, remember how BSE Global in 2024 positioned it as a “Vibrant Hub for the Community” and a “community-first basketball experience”?
New business creation
BSE aims to be “widening our circle of experiences to bolster our ecosystem including comedy, magic, circus, immersive entertainment and new types of hospitality.”
Would magic be in a smaller club space? Immersive entertainment, too?
The hotel, unmentioned, might be several years away, relying, for example, on construction of a new building at Site 5, across from the arena.
The document describes potential synergy, such as a basketball clinic patron attending a Nets game; a A Liberty fan visiting the team’s training facility buying exclusive merchandise; a concert goer might “join our Brooklyn Wine Club,” a comedy, circus, or magic ticket holder might buy more.
Team Performance
Note that ‘team performance” refers to members of the Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment team, not the sports teams on the floor, because, well, that’s hardly guaranteed.
So the teams are Sales, Partnerships, Creative, etc., working across functions and businesses.
The Platform Model
In the platform model, company functions support various businesses and brands.
Businesses are properties with “distinct P&L’s, external brand identity/value, dedicated staff and are run by a business lead.”
Functions are “Specialty areas that support the business,” some of which have a revenue component.
The platform is said to enable growth, with examples:
finding and developing the site to building a new training facility for the Liberty
creating experiences— food, fashion, art, music and basketball—for the Brooklyn Nets’ 2024 game in Paris.renovating the arena with better offerings for big spenders and room for Upper Bowl fans (not as big spenders) to congregate, while still operating the venue
the Nets leveraged the retirement ceremony of former player Vince Carter to
“bridge the gap between the identities and fan bases of the New Jersey Nets and the Brooklyn Nets” and cultivate relationships with former players
hosting six games for the G League Long Island Nets last year at a hockey arena in Montreal, selling out the venue and marketing gear, and creating new fans
The WHO
“The WHO is shaped by two critical components: Values and Behaviors.”
Company Values:
INTEGRITY: Be intellectually honest at all times and demonstrate highest professional and ethical standards.
CARE: Care for everyone and everything around us. Practice empathy, respect, and inclusion to promote an environment of excellence and success.
GROWTH MINDSET: Develop ourselves and those around us, experiment, learn and improve from everything we do.
ACCOUNTABILITY: Deliver on our word, take responsibility for our actions, and work in the interest of our team.
Complementary Behaviors are said to be “additional tangible expressions of our values,” including:
Act With Urgency
Collaborate
Have a ‘Can Do’ Approach
Take Ownership
The document ends with a promise that, “Together, we commit to relentlessly”:
Pursue our company goals.
Embody our shared values.
Practice our core behaviors.
Interlude: Alibaba values
Let’s note the values of Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce behemoth led by Tsai:
Customers first, employees second, shareholders third
Trust makes everything simple
Change is the only constant
Today’s best performance is tomorrow’s baseline
If not now, when? If not me, who?
Live seriously, work happily
It’s not a direct overlap, but the forward-looking push seems related—or maybe this is how companies now talk.
Making bank
BSE’s current About Us page offers this description: “We are a renowned sports and entertainment organization with a rich history in basketball and community engagement.”
Organization? The Our Partners page describes business deals:
how Moët Hennessy, “the exclusive Cognac and Champagne partner of Barclays Center, the Brooklyn Nets, and New York Liberty since 2022… brings premium fan experiences to life”
how exclusive American Express Card “Member perks and immersive activations, the collaboration brought fans closer to the game”
the New York Liberty’s partnership with Microsoft’s Xbox was “highlighted by a Roblox-inspired secondary basketball court”
In the end, it’s all about the bottom line.
That’s The Brooklyn Way, too.