In the continuing saga of the New York Islanders and where they will play in the future, a new report from Bloomberg has a “supergroup” of sports executives ready to invest in a new arena project for the team. The group includes James Dolan owner of the New York Rangers, Tim Leiweke former CEO of Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment, and the Wilpon family, owners of the New York Mets.
The Islanders are currently playing at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where the ice has been a huge problem all season and sight lines for fans are causing issues in attendance. The arena wasn’t meant for hockey, but took in the team when they left Nassau Coliseum in 2015. The new plan has the team building just outside of Queens at the Belmont site discussed earlier this season. The team’s current lease with Barclay’s could be terminated to allow the Islanders to move out of the arena as soon as the 2018-19 season, though obviously another building would need to be in place for it.
The team which was struggling for much of the first half of the season has turned it around and is vying for a playoff spot, but still has the second-worst attendance in the league at just 13,003. The capacity of Barclays is 15,795 when designed for hockey. The Rangers, meanwhile are averaging over 18,000 a night and have a stable home in the recently renovated Madison Square Garden. The NHL does allow current owners to have investments in other team’s arenas, though Dolan’s interest would be through the Oak View Group, an equity firm headed by Leiweke.
The Belmont site is not just open to anyone, as NYCFC of Major League Soccer also would like to build a soccer-specific stadium on it. They were mentioned in the original piece as potential bidders, though Bloomberg reports that “those negotiations aren’t active”. For now the Islanders will concentrate on making the playoffs and trying to fill the Barclays Center every night. With John Tavares up for an extension July 1st, a future home for the organization would definitely be a nice selling point.
I think it is inevitable that the Isles get a new building and Belmont makes the most sense.
Belmont is on STATE property which will help avoid some of the issues that the Isles had at the Coliseum which is on County property. In addition the Coliseum had to overcome Town Of Hempstead issues.
Belmont gives the Isles the best of both worlds. It is literally on the Queens-Nassau border which will make it easier for fans coming home from the city to get to games yet be closer to the fan base on Long Island to get to week night games.
Belmont unlike the Coliseum has LIRR access. Granted the State will need to kick in resources to make this a viable option. The station is only used during horse racing season and on its biggest day (Belmont Stakes) consistently has had overcrowding problems where the police have been forced to send people away.
Belmont has Hempstead Turnpike access (same as the Coliseum), Cross Island Parkway access (Coliseum had Meadowbrook) and will still have sufficient parking unlike Barclays.
Finally the NHL and Gary Bettman will not allow the Isles to leave the area and Bettman has criticized Barclays both before the Isles moved there and since the move so he wants them out.
So why does the Rangers owner want in? There are three reasons that I can think of. First and foremost, his management company lost the bid to Barclays in the redevelopment of the Nassau Coliseum. Getting a new building I am sure will come with a guarantee that his company manages the property which will put a dent in the Barclays business both at the New Coliseum and Barclays itself. Secondly lets not forget, MSG spent about 1B on renovating the Garden BUT NYC only guaranteed a 10 year lease on the property. It is entirely possible NYC says the Garden has to move. They have been talking about a new Penn Station forever and MSG sits on top of it. Realistically that won’t happen but a new building with MSG as one of the financiers would guarantee the Rangers and Knicks a home until a new building is built. Finally Dolan and Cablevision (now Altice) have invested heavily on Long Island. Between their cable service, high speed internet, purchase of Newsday it would fall into the model of everything good on LI goes through Dolan.
The question is why do the Wilpons want in? Anyone that knows the Mets knows they have very large debt payments due on the Mets and Citi Field. Several years ago they needed to borrow money from MLB to pay players salaries while they refinanced their debt with Bank of America. So realistically how much could they contribute?
Having an ex Maple Leaf Garden person on board can only help more from the knowledge of what it takes to build a viable arena.
The story mentions plans have already been drawn up. That is good news. I am sure they will be floated soon. There was an absolutely beautiful rendering of a building several years ago with a huge glass entryway with Isles logos, Hall of Fame entrance. I would just hope they really go all out since this building would need to last 20-30 years.
I am very optimistic this will get done. Having seen these new owners complain about Barclays from moment one I knew there was no way they were staying in Brooklyn for 25 years. Now the question is will NY get out of their way and allow this to get done.
“Get the f out of NYC”
They should go to pilgrim