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tel/fax:
718.362.4784
Please note our new postal address when sending
contributions to the legal fund:
121 5th Avenue, PMB #150
Brooklyn, New York 11217
About DDDB
Our coalition consists of 21 community organizations and
there are 51 community organizations formally
aligned in opposition to the Ratner plan.
DDDB is a volunteer-run organization. We have over 5,000
subscribers to our email newsletter, and 7,000 petition
signers. Over 800 volunteers have registered with DDDB
to form our various teams, task-forces and committees
and we have over 150 block captains. We have a 20 person
volunteer legal team of local lawyers supplementing our
retained attorneys.
We are funded entirely by individual donations from the community at large
and through various fundraising events we and supporters have organized.
We have the financial support of well over 3,500 individual
donors.
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Token Mets Owners vs. Nets "Owner" Jay-Z
Today The New York Times, in a tongue-in-cheek (borderline sneering) manner, takes a look at the financially strapped New York Mets' effort to sell off $20 million shares of the team to minority owners who will have no say in the franchise's development but will receive perks such as access to the Mets' mascot Mr. Met and a parking spot at CitiField. For its story The Times obtained a term sheet given by the Mets' owners to prospective partners.
According to The Times a $20 milllion share represents about 4% of the team (our calculations peg it at about 2.6%).
What's this have to do with Atlantic Yards? Well "cultural icon" Jay-Z is a less than 1% owner of the New Jersey Nets, paying roughly $4.5 million for the right to be out front of the team's marketing campaigns. Yet one would believe from the media coverage (including The Times) and the Nets public relations strategy that he owns a substantial portion of the team. Or, as Norman Oder put it in a Salon article, "He's become the face of the franchise, the Teflon-coated superstar employed by his partners to distract attention from the hardball politics, sweetheart deals and private profits behind the arena and the rest of the 16-tower project."
The press has taken Jay-Z's figurehead ownership and inflated it to such an extent as to suggest that the rapper is making franchise decisions (see the LeBron James free agency saga), when in reality those decisions are made primarily by the Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov and his management team, with an assist from Nets CEO and PR huckster Brett Yormark.
We doubt very much that The Times or any other news outlet will ever even divulge the names of the $20 million Mets shareholders, let alone make a single one of them the face of the franchise. Yet the focus on Jay-Z as a Nets owner will not end unless he sells his small share.
So $20 million to the Mets affords the investor the booby prize of getting to hang with the Mets' mascot. With the Nets, $4.5 million makes you the owner, at least in the eyes of the celebrity-obsessed press.
Posted: 12.21.11
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