: The NY Times just released a SCATHING new report, saying that Jay Z owns virtually NONE of the New Jersey Nets. Jay Z has been BRAGGING for the last 10 years or so about "owning" the Nets. But according to the Times, Jigga's interest in the team amounts to one fifteenth of ONE PERCENT of the team, or less than $200,000. (The team is valued at about $300M)
Here is what they report:
All told, [Jay Z] has achieved a remarkable feat of leverage with his tiny sliver of the team, which was reduced from one-third to one-fifteenth of a percent upon Mr. Prokhorovβs purchase of the Nets, according to people aware of the deal terms.You see, this is why BILLIONAIRES stay winning. Dude just SH*TTED on Jay - diluted the F*CK outta him. And Jigga is still running around REPPING for that team.
who cares, if U sell Ur soul to the Devil, U can at least own the whole *** team. U 2/3rd (sell out slave N*gro's) R the same ppl who kept us on the plantation when we tried to get together & leave to free ourselves from these Edomites.......... U 2/3 HOUSE N*ZZERR ran & told the slave massa". We where trying to leave".........This is who U ppl are. This Dummy is going to burn in hell FOREVER!! & U slaves think his success is wonderful..........................U can tell most of U never own a decent car in Ur life, never travel outside this country, U country Bumpkins never even came out of Ur own neighborhood, Don't Own a Passport, U worship alot of these Dumb celebrities & if U met them face to face U would see how stupid these celebrities R off stage, most of them have a bunch of kids, there all on drugs & everything they do is a bad decision ..................alot of U don't even have a *** job so U slaves think anyone who shows up with a little something is God............ U 2/3rd R too dumb to breath air on this earth.
Jayz might be a lot of things but I don't think dumb is one of them. Even though his stake was diluted I'm sure he is getting something out of this still. Saw an interview once where he was talking about how they would always do deals where they would get a percentage of future profit etc vs jus getting a one time check. If he is still cosigning I would bet its for a big picture reason like maybe having his business linked with the team etc.
MTO is so full of B.S., how come they also failed to mention that:
Mr. Ratner may have thought he was getting little more than a limited partner with a boldface name and a youthful following that could prove useful someday. But Jay-Zâs contributions have dwarfed the $1 million he invested nine years ago. His influence on the project has been wildly disproportionate to his ownership stake â a scant one-fifteenth of one percent of the team. And so is the money he stands to make from it. The arena will contain a 40/40 Club, an iteration of his sports-bar-style *** chain. There will be a Rocawear store, selling his clothing line, on the arenaâs exterior. Even the advertising agency used by the Nets, Translation, is half-owned by Mr. Carter.
MTO forgot to mention that:
Mr. Ratner may have thought he was getting little more than a limited partner with a boldface name and a youthful following that could prove useful someday. But Jay-Zâs contributions have dwarfed the $1 million he invested nine years ago. His influence on the project has been wildly disproportionate to his ownership stake â a scant one-fifteenth of one percent of the team. And so is the money he stands to make from it. The arena will contain a 40/40 Club, an iteration of his sports-bar-style *** chain. There will be a Rocawear store, selling his clothing line, on the arenaâs exterior. Even the advertising agency used by the Nets, Translation, is half-owned by Mr. Carter.
MTO always twists something up in their favor, but this is bad journalisme because they never mentioned that:
Mr. Ratner may have thought he was getting little more than a limited partner with a boldface name and a youthful following that could prove useful someday. But Jay-Zâs contributions have dwarfed the $1 million he invested nine years ago. His influence on the project has been wildly disproportionate to his ownership stake â a scant one-fifteenth of one percent of the team. And so is the money he stands to make from it. The arena will contain a 40/40 Club, an iteration of his sports-bar-style *** chain. There will be a Rocawear store, selling his clothing line, on the arenaâs exterior. Even the advertising agency used by the Nets, Translation, is half-owned by Mr. Carter.
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This is the real story:
Mr. Ratner may have thought he was getting little more than a limited partner with a boldface name and a youthful following that could prove useful someday. But Jay-Zâs contributions have dwarfed the $1 million he invested nine years ago. His influence on the project has been wildly disproportionate to his ownership stake â a scant one-fifteenth of one percent of the team. And so is the money he stands to make from it. The arena will contain a 40/40 Club, an iteration of his sports-bar-style *** chain. There will be a Rocawear store, selling his clothing line, on the arenaâs exterior. Even the advertising agency used by the Nets, Translation, is half-owned by Mr. Carter.
This is such bad journalism...WOW...MTO jst makes stories up nowadays. Anyways this is the real story:
Mr. Ratner may have thought he was getting little more than a limited partner with a boldface name and a youthful following that could prove useful someday. But Jay-Zâs contributions have dwarfed the $1 million he invested nine years ago. His influence on the project has been wildly disproportionate to his ownership stake â a scant one-fifteenth of one percent of the team. And so is the money he stands to make from it. The arena will contain a 40/40 Club, an iteration of his sports-bar-style *** chain. There will be a Rocawear store, selling his clothing line, on the arenas exterior. Even the advertising agency used by the Nets, Translation, is half-owned by Mr. Carter.
It's not like Jay is losing in any way Mto. Whatever percentage he gets, it's still gonna be positive as long as revenue is coming in. You don't become as wealthy as Jay has by being stupid. Of course there are risk to any business venture, but I believe Jay knows what he's doing. I seriously doubt he got diluted out by anyone...
AGAIN THIS IS TYPICAL SUBSTANDARD JOURNALISM ON THE PART OF MTO. BUT IT IS ALSO THIS INSISTENCE ON LABELING MINSTRELS AND MEDIOCRE MUSICIANS AS "BUSINESSMEN." JAYZ HAS BENEFITED BY BEING POPULAR AND HAVING ACCESS TO CERTAIN OPPORTUNITIES (AND SPRINKLE SOME LUCK ON THERE AS WELL) BUT ACTUALLY RUNNING THE DAILY OPERATIONS OF A BUSINESS, READING A BALANCE ***, DETERMINING EXPENDITURES OR BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR PAYROLL ARE DOUBTFUL......AND HAVING TIME TO TOUR? CAN WE REALLY BE THIS NAIVE?
STOP SUPPORTING ARTISTS THAT ROUTINELY *** BLACK IMAGERY AND CULTURE. STOP SUPPORTING WOMEN THAT INSIST ON WEARING AFRO SAXON TOUPEES AND/OR CAUCASIAN HAIR HATS (THEY ARE PUBLIC EMBARRASSMENTS......A PIG IN A TUXEDO WOULD BE EQUALLY AS CRAZY). TIME TO SWITCH TO ALTERNATIVE BLACK CULTURE, MUSIC AND THOUGHT, COURTESY OF AFRONERDRADIO.COM. LISTEN EVERY WED & SUN AT 7PM (THE COMIC SHOPPE AIRS EVERY SUN AT 6PM-DISCUSIING ALL THINGS COMIC, SCI-FI, VIDEO GAMING & FANTASY...YES bLACK FOLKS HAVE INTEREST IN THESE MATTERS AS WELL)....STOP ACTING LIKE WALKING STEREOTYPES)..CALL THE HOSTS LIVE AT 646-915-9620. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, PEOPLE. THE PROMOTION OG ***%%A NONSENSE ENDS TODAY!!!
It is true, like brother Malcolm X said if you want to keep anything from a person "Put It In a Book" Please read the New York Times link or better yet pickup the Wall Street Jounal and go to the finiance page. You will see the ownership an d profits of any company or individual shareholders. Wake up people!!! Why do you, continue to walk aimlessly amongst the dead........
Well if you didn't know, 1. Jay also has access to a luxury sweet at every home game that costs around 500,000 a year 2. There will be a Rocawear store inside the area which he still gets residual income from and 3. There will be a 40/40 club inside the Brooklyn arena......... Sounds like more money to me........ Add these numbers up and you are looking at one smart black boy......
MTO..you have to realize you report to a bunch of ignorant know it all ***. they don't understand how much that little bit can really affect someone..especially if they had a lot of money invested. there's a lot of things attached to big projects like this. a slight knock down can *** you up big time. he still has money of course, but just because the numbers are small doesn't mean it doesn't have a bigger picture attached to it.
His percentage share may be small with the team but his other businesses are also pro-rated with the team. The theme music, the Jerseys and his live nation rock performers. These are assets that the other team owners are not associated with. His business strategy is second to none. That is one smart cookie!
Now here is the other part of the article....Nice try guys...
"As much as his partners, including Mikhail D. Prokhorov, the Russian billionaire who bought 80 percent of the team in 2009, are getting out of him, Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, is benefiting handsomely, too, beginning with free use of one of 11 exclusive âVaultâ suites, for which paying customers are charged $550,000 a year.
Suite owners will have access to a Champagne bar serving Armand de Brignac, an expensive bubbly that Mr. Carter promotes and in which he holds a financial interest, according to a biography by a writer for Forbes. The arena will contain a 40/40 Club, an iteration of his sports-bar-style *** chain. There will be a Rocawear store, selling his clothing line, on the arenaâs exterior. Even the advertising agency used by the Nets, Translation, is half-owned by Mr. Carter.
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the filthy [EXPLETIVE] owns everything.p diddy doesnt even own bad boy,do your research.these uncle tom ***!ggas in the industry is all getting pimped by the devil.But thats why we are in a global economic crisis and judgement its on is way for you heathens!!!THE FILTHY [EXPLETIVE]ARABS AND RAT EATING ASIANS WILL FACE JUDGEMENT AND THE NATION OF ISRAEL WILL (SO CALLED BLACK,HISPANICS AND NATIVE INDIANS) WILL BE THE NEW RULERS IN THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN THAT WILL BE HERE ON EARTH NOT NO SPOOKY PLACE IN THE SKY
Let's see...Jay was a millionaire before he ever entered the rap game, entered the rap game and became a multimillionaire, married a multimillion, was *** near a billionaire before he ever took stake the the Nets, and is now a billionaire when you combine his household incomes. I really can't see him crying his the way to the poor house behind this. And MTO, what percentage of anything at all do you own?
First of all, you all know that these white people do not like blacks, they want to see you broke! Desi(***) please go to a website with all of you other violent Mid Eastern relatives and make sure they are not getting ready to blow something up! Desi princess or hag you wish Indians and Asians were taking over. You all don't even have a culture because you are to busy stealing our culture trying to break dance and sing R & B looking like some dummies and sounding a hot mess because yall can't hold a decent note!
In regard to the statement that "SELLOUTSMUSTPAY" posted, boo, Hispanics are are not the Isreal lites and they are definitely not black or African! I do not see their homeland mentioned in the Bible at all , but I do see parts of Africa mentioned in the Bible(EGYPT), of course back then the people there had kinky hair and was dark before all of those violent Iranians and Iraqes move into Africa.
@kimkelmor- Please do your research before you dispell your incorrect information.. JZ was not a millionaire before he started rapping. He openly admitted to selling crack/cocaine to fiens in Marcy Projects, he was had assault charges and owned many illegal firearms while he was hustling his CDs/Mixtapes trying to make it big...He was a street hustler who dropped out of highschool...
True, he is a multi-millionaire, but that money will not save his soul from complete damnation..The cost of fame comes w/a high price...
Dear Mr. Carter... wake the heck up! The Russians are the same people as these Jews you give your alliegance to for the money, they are the Khazars and are the synagogue of satan just as Christ calls them in Rev 2:9, yes they own all the money, heck they print it! But... being who you are, the bloodline of the sons of Jacob, they will NEVER let you partake in owning the big time stuff in their kingdom which is soon to come to an end... they know if you turn from evil and follow the Most High, AHAYAH is his name, that you will recieve the promises of your forfathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob... eternal riches that NEVER EVER perish plus you get eternal life. Wake up Jay-Z these people using you and keeping you at bay throwing money and endless material posession in your face.
"But the bottom line is that he is still worth hundreds of millions."
True, but the point you're missing is how insignificant hundreds of millions of dollars are compared to people with real money. There are people who pretend to have a lot of wealth and power, and get away with it because so many people don't even know what real wealth & real power look like. And then there are people, who really have wealth and power, that have to flex on posers like Shawn Carter to remind them of how they even got to where they're at in the first place. Jay-Z knew his interest was diluted, but he was happy that he got a team to Brooklyn...
EVEN IF BRINGING A TEAM TO BROOKLYN WOULD CAUSE GENTRIFICATION the likes of which no other town, city, or borough has ever seen. Downtown Manhattan residents who were once afraid to even fall asleep on the A or C train for fear of ending up in Brooklyn are now moving out there.
and he was running around acting like he owned the team. LOL.. I guess he's still doing better than 95% of America to be able to drop 200k on a basketball team but it's definitely a great investment either way..
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Nigg** in Paris... lol The Song title alone SMH... I love Jay Z but Dayum embarrassing song. White folks calling blk people *** blk people think its cute.Thinking they have now assimilated. LOL. Since Hip Hop is a bi-product of Africn American culture everybody wants a piece. I applaud Jay Z on controling his own destiny, not forgetting about Brooklyn and hopefully being a major player. Jay Z is now just a image a brand people attach to try to get their product recognized and seen as cool. Didn't the facebook dude do that to kick out his best friend. Lastly mto who did u steal this story from if true. we know yall only known for list gossip.
MTO IS SOOOOO *** ***!!! HERE'S THE STORY IN FULL THAT SHOWED THAT ALL PORTIONS OF PARTNERS GOT CUT BUT HOW JAY IS WINNING AND MAKING $$$ WITH HIS SMALL PORTION AND HOW HE HAS A BIG ROLE WITH THE NETS!!!
When the developer Bruce Ratner set out to buy the New Jersey Nets and build an arena for them in Brooklyn, he recruited Jay-Z, the hip-hop *** who grew up in public housing a couple of miles from the site, to join his group of investors.
Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Jay-Z, who owns about one-fifteenth of a percent of the Brooklyn Nets, and Mikhail D. Prokhorov, the Russian billionaire who owns 80 percent, got equal billing in a billboard near Madison Square Garden.
Jay-Z, second from right, helped break ground in 2010 for the Netsâ Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
Mr. Ratner may have thought he was getting little more than a limited partner with a boldface name and a youthful following that could prove useful someday. But Jay-Zâs contributions have dwarfed the $1 million he invested nine years ago. His influence on the project has been wildly disproportionate to his ownership stake â a scant one-fifteenth of one percent of the team. And so is the money he stands to make from it.
Now, with the long-delayed Barclays Center arena nearing opening *** in September and the Nets bidding in earnest for Brooklynâs loyalties, Jay-Z will perform eight sold-out shows to kick things off. But away from center stage he has put his mark on almost every facet of the enterprise, his partners say.
He helped design the team logos and choose the teamâs stark black-and-white color scheme, and personally appealed to National Basketball Association officials to drop their objections to it (the ***.B.A., according to a person with knowledge of the discussion, thought that African-American athletes did not look good on TV in black, an assertion that a league spokesman adamantly denied). He counseled arena executives on what kind of music to play during games. (âLess Jersey,â he urged, pushing niche artists like Santigold over old favorites like Bon Jovi.)
He even coached them on how to screen patrons for weapons without appearing too heavy-handed. (âBe mindful,â he advised oracularly, âand be sensitive.â)
In the two and a half years since groundbreaking, as taxi-roof advertisements promised âAll access to Jay-Z,â and sponsorship salespeople trumpeted how âhip and coolâ he and his wife, Beyoncé, would make the arena, he and the Nets have effectively written a new playbook for how to deploy a strategic celebrity investor.
If it has been done elsewhere â see Usher with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Will Smith with the Philadelphia 76ers, and Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony with the Miami Dolphins â no team has come close to making as much out of a famous part-owner.
And none of the dozens of other current and former part-owners of the team have played so public a role â not even Mary Higgins Clark, the best-selling author, though she read to children at a Nets literacy event.
âHe is it,â Mr. Ratner, the developer, said in an interview. âHe is us. He is how people are going to see that place.â
As much as his partners, including Mikhail D. Prokhorov, the Russian billionaire who bought 80 percent of the team in 2009, are getting out of him, Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, is benefiting handsomely, too, beginning with free use of one of 11 exclusive âVaultâ suites, for which paying customers are charged $550,000 a year.
Suite owners will have access to a Champagne bar serving Armand de Brignac, an expensive bubbly that Mr. Carter promotes and in which he holds a financial interest, according to a biography by a writer for Forbes. The arena will contain a 40/40 Club, an iteration of his sports-bar-style *** chain. There will be a Rocawear store, selling his clothing line, on the arenaâs exterior. Even the advertising agency used by the Nets, Translation, is half-owned by Mr. Carter.
There is also an important intangible asset, particularly for a rapper: the bragging rights that Mr. Carter has enjoyed as a part-owner since Mr. Ratnerâs group paid $300 million to acquire the Nets. His slender stake was enough for Mr. Carter to thump his chest in his lyrics, promising to âbring you some Nets.â
Mr. Carter has capitalized further on his Nets investment by extending the Jay-Z brand into endorsement deals normally reserved for elite athletes. He stars, wearing a Nets cap, in a Budweiser TV commercial that was broadcast during the Olympic Games. And he was named executive producer of the basketball video game, âNBA 2K13.â
All told, he has achieved a remarkable feat of leverage with his tiny sliver of the team, which was reduced from one-third to one-fifteenth of a percent upon Mr. Prokhorovâs purchase of the Nets, according to people aware of the deal terms. (Mr. Carter, who declined to be interviewed for this article, retains a slightly larger sliver of the arena itself â just under a fifth of a percent.)
As if to slam that point home, when the Nets placed a 222-foot-tall billboard near Madison Square Garden depicting Mr. Carter and Mr. Prokhorov as their âblueprint for greatness,â the two were shown at the same size, with Mr. Carter up front.
Mr. Ratner said he was seeking both sizzle and âcredibility â which we needed badly,â when he first approached several other celebrities in 2003 about helping him acquire the team. Then he was introduced to Mr. Carter by Drew Katz, the son of one of the Netsâ principal owners, after Jason Kidd, then the Netsâ marquee point guard, suggested that Mr. Carter buy the team.
Mr. Carterâs credibility was indisputable: a product of the Marcy Houses, he had an early career as a drug dealer (and kept a âstash spotâ two blocks from the arena site, according to one of his songs) before becoming one of the most successful rap artists of all time. He had also shown talent as a businessman, creating his own record label and what soon became a wide range of other business ventures.
Mr. Ratner was wary. He often says he overcame his concerns about Mr. Carterâs more offensive lyrics â celebrating gangster culture and *** women â only after learning there were cleaned-up âradio versionsâ of the songs, too. And Mr. Carter, he said, appeared nervous about having to meet with David Stern, the ***.B.A. commissioner, who asked him to discuss his guilty plea to stabbing a record producer in 1999. (Mr. Carter described the incident, for which he received three yearsâ probation, as a symptom of âthe world I lived in once,â Mr. Ratner recalled.)
Mr. Carterâs involvement frustrated opponents of Mr. Ratnerâs development plans in Brooklyn who saw the arena and proposed residential and office towers as a subsidized land grab that could ruin the neighborhood. They complained that residents who might have been wary of Mr. Ratnerâs promises to create jobs, nonetheless trusted Jay-Z, who invoked his roots and insisted he could never support âanything thatâs against the people.â
âBringing in someone who grew up in public housing, with a rags-to-riches story, who could identify with Brooklyn and African-Americans, that was slick,â said City Councilwoman Letitia James, a critic of the project. Mr. Ratner played down Mr. Carterâs importance in overcoming opposition. âHad Jay-Z not come along,â he said, âweâd still have an arena.â
In the early years, as the Nets made playoff runs, Mr. Carter freely associated himself with the team, attending games and suggesting how to entertain V.I.P.âs in style, said Brett Yormark, chief executive of the Nets. âHe and I would talk about how we could use New Jersey as a lab experiment for Brooklyn,â he said.
He also made himself useful to the basketball staff, persuading Shareef Abdur-Rahim of the Portland Trail Blazers to accept a 2005 trade to the Nets (an injury scuttled the deal) and giving Vince Carter a pep talk after he played poorly in two playoff games in 2007 (he responded with 37 points in the next game).
But the rap star pulled back from the Nets as their fortunes faded and they failed to make the playoffs after the 2007-8 season. âHeâs very brand-conscious,â a Nets official said.
It was only after the Barclays Center had cleared all hurdles in December 2009 that Mr. Carter unabashedly stepped forward. He courted LeBron James on behalf of the Nets in 2010 and pursued Carmelo Anthony a year later. And when the Netsâ newest star, Deron Williams, needed advice on where to buy a home, Mr. Carter told him to call.
Aaron Goodwin, an agent who has represented many young players who became ***.B.A. stars, said Mr. Carterâs involvement had improved the image of the Nets in athletesâ eyes. âTheyâre going to take the phone call now,â he said. âTheyâre going to take the flight in. Theyâre going to listen. In years past, the Nets wouldnât have gotten that. But now theyâre in the game.â Mr. Yormark said Mr. Carter was not receiving a fee for his advice or any special deals for his businesses. Yet he has attended both quarterly meetings of the arenaâs board of directors, sitting to Mr. Ratnerâs right, and keeps in frequent touch by phone and e-mail with Mr. Yormark.
During the Netsâ free-agency deal making this summer â obtaining Joe Johnson and re-signing Mr. Williams, among others, in hopes of improving upon their 22-44 record last season â Mr. Yormark received a call from Mr. Carter, who was following the teamâs moves on television. âHe said he was watching ESPN,â Mr. Yormark said, âand the size of our logo was too big, because the word Brooklyn was getting cut off on the ticker at the bottom of the screen. He said, âCall ESPN and get them to fix it.â And he was right. And then they fixed it.â
When Mr. Yormark next sat down for a meeting with Mr. Carter, he recalled, the rap star reminded him of this, saying: âBrett, Iâm watching. And every detail matters.â
Suite owners will have access to a Champagne bar serving Armand de Brignac, an expensive bubbly that Mr. Carter promotes and in which he holds a financial interest, according to a biography by a writer for Forbes. The arena will contain a 40/40 Club, an iteration of his sports-bar-style *** chain. There will be a Rocawear store, selling his clothing line, on the arenaâs exterior. Even the advertising agency used by the Nets, Translation, is half-owned by Mr. Carter.... STFU WITH THE HATE .... *** HATE TO SEE OTHER *** DOING WELL!!!!!!!!!
lol at MTO going in on some 'Jay Z has been BRAGGING for the last 10 years or so about "owning" the Nets', but lets be real though one fifteenth of a % aint s hit in the bigger scheme of things. im now beginning to suspect theres some truth to the rumours that him and his wifes nett worth is inflated..... firing half of rocawear staff the day before blu iv was born to deflect the medias attention....selling occupy wall street tees...nuff said
Suite owners will have access to a Champagne bar serving Armand de Brignac, an expensive bubbly that Mr. Carter promotes and in which he holds a financial interest, according to a biography by a writer for Forbes. The arena will contain a 40/40 Club, an iteration of his sports-bar-style *** chain. There will be a Rocawear store, selling his clothing line, on the arenaâs exterior. Even the advertising agency used by the Nets, Translation, is half-owned by Mr. Carter...Yall never post the whole story lol
LMFAO Whenever you See Something like this on MTO do your own research as I just did people this whole "article" is *** he definitely has made a lot more from this team Since investing his original $1 million an has invested much more an gotten back much more when it was made official the Nets would move to Brooklyn...whenever on this Site keep another Tab open for Google you think a Black man gonna get mind *** outta his money Like that!!!
MTO IS SOOOOO *** ***!!! HERE'S THE STORY IN FULL THAT SHOWED THAT ALL PORTIONS OF PARTNERS GOT CUT BUT HOW JAY IS WINNING AND MAKING $$$ WITH HIS SMALL PORTION - $1 MILLION HE INVESTED!!! AND HOW HE HAS A BIG ROLE WITH THE NETS!!! THE ARTICLE IS BASICALLY BIGGING JAY UP FOR TAKING HIS $1 MILLION INVESTMENT AND FLIPPING IT INTO MORE MILLIONS!!!
When the developer Bruce Ratner set out to buy the New Jersey Nets and build an arena for them in Brooklyn, he recruited Jay-Z, the hip-hop *** who grew up in public housing a couple of miles from the site, to join his group of investors.
Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Jay-Z, who owns about one-fifteenth of a percent of the Brooklyn Nets, and Mikhail D. Prokhorov, the Russian billionaire who owns 80 percent, got equal billing in a billboard near Madison Square Garden.
Jay-Z, second from right, helped break ground in 2010 for the Nets� Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
Mr. Ratner may have thought he was getting little more than a limited partner with a boldface name and a youthful following that could prove useful someday. But Jay-Z�s contributions have dwarfed the $1 million he invested nine years ago. His influence on the project has been wildly disproportionate to his ownership stake � a scant one-fifteenth of one percent of the team. And so is the money he stands to make from it.
Now, with the long-delayed Barclays Center arena nearing opening *** in September and the Nets bidding in earnest for Brooklyn�s loyalties, Jay-Z will perform eight sold-out shows to kick things off. But away from center stage he has put his mark on almost every facet of the enterprise, his partners say.
He helped design the team logos and choose the team�s stark black-and-white color scheme, and personally appealed to National Basketball Association officials to drop their objections to it (the ***.B.A., according to a person with knowledge of the discussion, thought that African-American athletes did not look good on TV in black, an assertion that a league spokesman adamantly denied). He counseled arena executives on what kind of music to play during games. (�Less Jersey,� he urged, pushing niche artists like Santigold over old favorites like Bon Jovi.)
He even coached them on how to screen patrons for weapons without appearing too heavy-handed. (�Be mindful,� he advised oracularly, �and be sensitive.�)
In the two and a half years since groundbreaking, as taxi-roof advertisements promised �All access to Jay-Z,� and sponsorship salespeople trumpeted how �hip and cool� he and his wife, Beyoncé, would make the arena, he and the Nets have effectively written a new playbook for how to deploy a strategic celebrity investor.
If it has been done elsewhere � see Usher with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Will Smith with the Philadelphia 76ers, and Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony with the Miami Dolphins � no team has come close to making as much out of a famous part-owner.
And none of the dozens of other current and former part-owners of the team have played so public a role � not even Mary Higgins Clark, the best-selling author, though she read to children at a Nets literacy event.
�He is it,� Mr. Ratner, the developer, said in an interview. �He is us. He is how people are going to see that place.�
As much as his partners, including Mikhail D. Prokhorov, the Russian billionaire who bought 80 percent of the team in 2009, are getting out of him, Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, is benefiting handsomely, too, beginning with free use of one of 11 exclusive �Vault� suites, for which paying customers are charged $550,000 a year.
Suite owners will have access to a Champagne bar serving Armand de Brignac, an expensive bubbly that Mr. Carter promotes and in which he holds a financial interest, according to a biography by a writer for Forbes. The arena will contain a 40/40 Club, an iteration of his sports-bar-style *** chain. There will be a Rocawear store, selling his clothing line, on the arena�s exterior. Even the advertising agency used by the Nets, Translation, is half-owned by Mr. Carter.
There is also an important intangible asset, particularly for a rapper: the bragging rights that Mr. Carter has enjoyed as a part-owner since Mr. Ratner�s group paid $300 million to acquire the Nets. His slender stake was enough for Mr. Carter to thump his chest in his lyrics, promising to �bring you some Nets.�
Mr. Carter has capitalized further on his Nets investment by extending the Jay-Z brand into endorsement deals normally reserved for elite athletes. He stars, wearing a Nets cap, in a Budweiser TV commercial that was broadcast during the Olympic Games. And he was named executive producer of the basketball video game, �NBA 2K13.�
All told, he has achieved a remarkable feat of leverage with his tiny sliver of the team, which was reduced from one-third to one-fifteenth of a percent upon Mr. Prokhorov�s purchase of the Nets, according to people aware of the deal terms. (Mr. Carter, who declined to be interviewed for this article, retains a slightly larger sliver of the arena itself � just under a fifth of a percent.)
As if to slam that point home, when the Nets placed a 222-foot-tall billboard near Madison Square Garden depicting Mr. Carter and Mr. Prokhorov as their �blueprint for greatness,� the two were shown at the same size, with Mr. Carter up front.
Mr. Ratner said he was seeking both sizzle and �credibility � which we needed badly,� when he first approached several other celebrities in 2003 about helping him acquire the team. Then he was introduced to Mr. Carter by Drew Katz, the son of one of the Nets� principal owners, after Jason Kidd, then the Nets� marquee point guard, suggested that Mr. Carter buy the team.
Mr. Carter�s credibility was indisputable: a product of the Marcy Houses, he had an early career as a drug dealer (and kept a �stash spot� two blocks from the arena site, according to one of his songs) before becoming one of the most successful rap artists of all time. He had also shown talent as a businessman, creating his own record label and what soon became a wide range of other business ventures.
Mr. Ratner was wary. He often says he overcame his concerns about Mr. Carter�s more offensive lyrics � celebrating gangster culture and *** women � only after learning there were cleaned-up �radio versions� of the songs, too. And Mr. Carter, he said, appeared nervous about having to meet with David Stern, the ***.B.A. commissioner, who asked him to discuss his guilty plea to stabbing a record producer in 1999. (Mr. Carter described the incident, for which he received three years� probation, as a symptom of �the world I lived in once,� Mr. Ratner recalled.)
Mr. Carter�s involvement frustrated opponents of Mr. Ratner�s development plans in Brooklyn who saw the arena and proposed residential and office towers as a subsidized land grab that could ruin the neighborhood. They complained that residents who might have been wary of Mr. Ratner�s promises to create jobs, nonetheless trusted Jay-Z, who invoked his roots and insisted he could never support �anything that�s against the people.�
�Bringing in someone who grew up in public housing, with a rags-to-riches story, who could identify with Brooklyn and African-Americans, that was slick,� said City Councilwoman Letitia James, a critic of the project. Mr. Ratner played down Mr. Carter�s importance in overcoming opposition. �Had Jay-Z not come along,� he said, �we�d still have an arena.�
In the early years, as the Nets made playoff runs, Mr. Carter freely associated himself with the team, attending games and suggesting how to entertain V.I.P.�s in style, said Brett Yormark, chief executive of the Nets. �He and I would talk about how we could use New Jersey as a lab experiment for Brooklyn,� he said.
He also made himself useful to the basketball staff, persuading Shareef Abdur-Rahim of the Portland Trail Blazers to accept a 2005 trade to the Nets (an injury scuttled the deal) and giving Vince Carter a pep talk after he played poorly in two playoff games in 2007 (he responded with 37 points in the next game).
But the rap star pulled back from the Nets as their fortunes faded and they failed to make the playoffs after the 2007-8 season. �He�s very brand-conscious,� a Nets official said.
It was only after the Barclays Center had cleared all hurdles in December 2009 that Mr. Carter unabashedly stepped forward. He courted LeBron James on behalf of the Nets in 2010 and pursued Carmelo Anthony a year later. And when the Nets� newest star, Deron Williams, needed advice on where to buy a home, Mr. Carter told him to call.
Aaron Goodwin, an agent who has represented many young players who became ***.B.A. stars, said Mr. Carter�s involvement had improved the image of the Nets in athletes� eyes. �They�re going to take the phone call now,� he said. �They�re going to take the flight in. They�re going to listen. In years past, the Nets wouldn�t have gotten that. But now they�re in the game.� Mr. Yormark said Mr. Carter was not receiving a fee for his advice or any special deals for his businesses. Yet he has attended both quarterly meetings of the arena�s board of directors, sitting to Mr. Ratner�s right, and keeps in frequent touch by phone and e-mail with Mr. Yormark.
During the Nets� free-agency deal making this summer � obtaining Joe Johnson and re-signing Mr. Williams, among others, in hopes of improving upon their 22-44 record last season � Mr. Yormark received a call from Mr. Carter, who was following the team�s moves on television. �He said he was watching ESPN,� Mr. Yormark said, �and the size of our logo was too big, because the word Brooklyn was getting cut off on the ticker at the bottom of the screen. He said, �Call ESPN and get them to fix it.� And he was right. And then they fixed it.�
When Mr. Yormark next sat down for a meeting with Mr. Carter, he recalled, the rap star reminded him of this, saying: �Brett, I�m watching. And every detail matters.�
Get with the Chicken George Program. Your highest self is your natural innovation. Let Jay money be. He frontin' his % to the masses, as though he made it in. A boss keeps quiet and just makes money. Real Money, with Real Bosses. That has been the way, since time out of mind. If he is so glad to be out of Marcy Park, that's great and 20 years ago. New chapter. The feds are pulling the rotation of cash anyway, so how relevant is Jay flight to your everyday. Bless your soul for making it, and paying a bill. If this dude inspire you, then do yourself a favor and look into what Money is and what it is not 2012. Hint: Money is not tangible. Cash Card or Crown, it's talk and collateral. Ask yourself: What does Jay-Z have as collateral to even get them 1 and 2% crumbs they been handing him? Also ask, how can you make your kingdom come in your own *** network. F'ck a someday...what you got today?
