Barclays Center

Location: Brooklyn, New York
Capacity:

• Basketball – 17,732
• Ice Hockey – 15,795
• Concerts – 17,000
• Boxing/Wrestling/MMA – 16,000

Home Teams:

• Brooklyn Nets (NBA) 2012–present
• LIU Sharks (NCAA) 2012–present (alternate)
• New York Liberty (WNBA) 2021–present

Barclays Center is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The arena is home to the Brooklyn Nets of the National Basketball Association and the New York Liberty of the Women’s National Basketball Association. The arena also hosts concerts, conventions and other sporting and entertainment events.

The arena is part of a $4.9 billion future business and residential complex now known as Pacific Park. The site is at Atlantic Avenue, next to the renamed Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center subway station on the 2, ​3, ​4, ​5​, B, ​D, N, ​Q​, R and ​W​ routes, as well as directly above the LIRR’s Atlantic Terminal.

The arena was proposed in 2004 when real estate developer Bruce Ratner purchased the Nets for $300 million as the first step of the process to build a new home for the team. Its use of eminent domain and its potential environmental impact brought community resistance, especially as residential buildings and businesses would need to be demolished with large amounts of public subsidies also to be used. The global recession of 2009 also caused financing for the project to dry up. As a result, construction was delayed until 2010, with no secure funding for the project having been allotted. Groundbreaking for construction occurred on March 11, 2010, and the arena opened on September 21, 2012, which some 200 protesters also attended.

Its first event was a Jay-Z concert on September 28, 2012. The arena is owned by the State of New York’s Empire State Development authority through a public entity named the Brooklyn Arena Local Development Corporation. It is leased by Brooklyn Event Center LLC, owned by Brooklyn Nets owner Joseph Tsai, with operations (and associated revenue) managed by Tsai’s BSE Global.