Barclays Center on track for first-year profit

Despite criticisms and delays, executives at Bruce Ratner’s Barclays Center in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn have turned their attentions to ensuring that the arena makes a sufficient profit and, despite competition from Madison Square Garden and the Prudential Center in Newark, it’s having no problems meeting preliminary goals, according to CEO Brett Yormark.

According to Crains, the $1 billion stadium already has 163 events booked for its first year, including 44 Nets games, tennis and boxing events, the Ringling Bros. circus and “Disney on Ice.” In addition, sales of the 4,400 premium season ticketshave “exceeded” expectations, Yormark said.

“Both in tickets sales and dollars, Brooklyn is voting yes,” he said, noting that 41 percent of the all-access tickets have gone to residents and businesses in the area.

Yormack said that years of delays have ultimately helped the area.

“It enabled us to rethink our strategy and make sure the arena is more suitable to the world we live in today than the world of five or six years ago,” he said.

Critics of the arena argue that all statistics and forecasts for the center are dependent on unreasonable timetables for completion.

“[All the positive] projections depend on Atlantic Yards being built in full within 10 years,” said Norman Oder, a journalist penning a book on the stadium. “We know that won’t happen.” [Crain’s]