This just in from Brooklyn: Arena houses TV station’s studio

In December, Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment, owner of the Brooklyn Nets and the group that runs the arena, signed a sponsorship with WPIX, an independent station owned by Tribune Broadcasting and known as PIX11. The three-year deal, valued at seven figures annually, includes arena signs and promotions, but the signature element is a new streetside studio along Flatbush Avenue on the building’s south side. It’s situated next to the team store and replaces a frozen yogurt shop inside the venue, said Brett Yormark, CEO of the team and the arena.

The team and the station held a ribbon cutting May 8, and the studio was expected to go live by the end of this month.

The PIX11 news desk at Barclays Center Photo by: COURTESY OF BARCLAYS CENTER

In addition to the live news piece, Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment and the broadcaster will work together to produce original content tied to special events at the arena. For example, it could be an interview during a newscast with a concert act performing that night or a fighter competing on a boxing card. In turn, Barclays Center TV, the arena’s in-house network presented by PIX11, could use snippets of those interviews on concourse displays before the event.

“When artists and athletes need a voice — which they didn’t have before to promote an album or a fight, for example — the studio will be convenient for them because it’s right there in our building,” Yormark said.

Rich Graziano, president and general manager of PIX11, said the studio puts the station in a prime position to expand its local reporting in Brooklyn, which at 2.6 million residents is New York’s largest borough.

Graziano took over at PIX11 two years ago after coming over from Tribune media properties in Hartford, Conn. Soon after, he reached out to Barclays Center to discuss a potential partnership. As the two parties went through negotiations, the concept of building a greater presence in Brooklyn drove the deal more than the marketing aspect in a city with a bevy of news outlets competing for viewers. Officials at PIX11 thought having a permanent studio would help the station stand out in the crowd among Brooklyn television viewers, Graziano said.

Its main studio is on 42nd Street in Manhattan.

“This deal positions us in a breakthrough way,” Graziano said. “In the news-gathering environment, [local news] is up against declining audiences and revenue, and other stations are cutting costs. For us, it’s an innovative partnership, and we’re brainstorming some cool ideas.”

Barclays Center joins PPL Center in Allentown, Pa., as arenas with full-time news desks. The Allentown arena, home to the AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms, opened in September with a broadcast studio on the ground floor after signing WFMZ-TV as a founding partner. It’s the station’s home base for local news coverage.

Many other arenas have sports sets tied to teams’ broadcast partners.

> STAYIN’ ALIVE: This month marks 10 years since sports architects and former business partners Ron Turner and Dan Meis went their separate ways in Los Angeles. A decade later, both keep making news on separate projects.

Last Monday, Turner, now leader of Gensler’s sports practice, attended the news conference announcing a new stadium planned for the Los Angeles Football Club, an MLS expansion team starting play in 2018. Two hours later in San Diego, Meis spoke to the media about his initial design of a stadium proposed for the San Diego Chargers by a local task force to keep the team from leaving for Los Angeles.

For Meis, it’s the second NFL stadium project he’s been involved with in Southern California, after working on developer Ed Roski’s proposal at a site about 20 miles east of Los Angeles. Gensler, with Turner at the helm, was the architect for AEG’s Farmers Field project.

Don Muret can be reached at dmuret@sportsbusinessjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @breakground.