N.Y.-based orthopedic specialist Hospital for Special Surgery has signed a 10-year deal with the Nets to entitle the team's training center, which will be located just over three miles from Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The 70,000-square-foot facility, scheduled to open before the '15-16 season, is being built on the eighth floor and rooftop of a rehabbed warehouse in Brooklyn's Sunset Park neighborhood. Sources said the entitlement for the Hospital for Special Surgery Training Center, along with an accompanying package for Nets team rights, totaled in the low seven figures per year. The package includes branding inside and outside the practice facility and signage at Nets games. HSS also gets logo placement on the Nets' practice jerseys, as well as hospitality at the practice facility and Barclays Center. "We're happy to continue and expand our association with what is a world-class health brand and have their help in building deeper community ties in Brooklyn,'' said Nets CEO Brett Yormark. Dr. Riley J. Williams, III, an HSS surgeon who has been the team’s medical director since '05-06, will see his role expanded as the Nets' head orthopedic surgeon. HSS team rights with the Nets start with the upcoming season. The hospital is no stranger to sports marketing, as it also has medical and commercial relationships with the Red Bulls, Yankees, Giants, Knicks, several local universities, the N.Y. Road Runners and the USOC. HSS is the latest health-care provider to brand practice facilities for pro teams. HSS President & CEO Lou Shapiro said, "Taking care of athletes who need their bodies to perform at the highest levels is a validation of what we do, so we're hoping more professional athletes, even outside of the Nets, will come to us for care. From a consumer perspective, we look for a halo effect from the association to help influence awareness and choice." Nets officials would not comment on the cost of the privately-funded project, but facilities of this type typically cost around $40M to build.
HOSPITALS PLAY MUSICAL CHAIRS: HSS has been a business partner of the team and has provided medical care to the Nets for some time. However, when the Nets moved to Brooklyn in '12, the team was seeking local roots, so it signed Maimonides Medical Center as the team's official hospital. Under the new agreement, HSS becomes "the official hospital of the Brooklyn Nets," while Maimonides' new designation is "Hometown Hospital of the Brooklyn Nets.'' Additionally, Brooklyn Hospital has a deal through which it is the "Official Hospital of the Barclays Center." Shapiro emphasized HSS' authentic medical ties as a principal reason behind the entitlement deal. "If you're not actually taking care of the players, it's just like being the official car," he said. The Nets' practice facility has been in East Rutherford, New Jersey, since '98. When that facility is shuttered next year, it will mark the team's last connection to the Garden State, where it moved from Long Island in '77.
