The Long Island Nets have officially announced their schedule for the upcoming season earlier.. In their schedule, posted on their website, 24 home games are listed. However, of those 24, for the second straight season, a number of them will be played in Montreal. Long Island played six last season at Place Bell in suburban Laval as the Brooklyn Nets organization tries to build a fan base among French Canadians, an initiative that so far has found success.
While last year was deemed an experiment
by BSE Global officials, fans in Canada’s were left wondering at the end of last season if they’d seen the end of the partnership with Canada’s Group CH, parent of the Montreal Canadians. When ND last had the chance to speak with Morgan Taylor, the Vice President of Business Operations for the Long Island Nets and New York Liberty, she was hopeful that their partnership would continue into this season.
“Our on-court play has been exciting,” she said after the first set of games at the 10,000-capacity Place Bell. “Our four games we had in Montreal were all close, and it’s been fun. How do we follow it up? We’re still evaluating our partnership and seeing what it looks like year-over-year and what it looks like next year,” said Taylor.
“Hopefully, I have some more updates for you over the next couple of months, but it’s taking away some of the marketing and fanfare that we saw in Montreal and bringing that to Long Island.” Last season’s Montreal trip was viewed as a “wild success” by Taylor and officials alike.
“We anticipated having a sellout for our purposes, a sellout for all six games, and we already had it for four games. We set our attendance record with the first game against the Raptors 905, with 7,700 people in attendance in Laval, QC. It’s been successful for us. We sold specialized merchandise up there as well, and we sold out in our first two games. We’re looking forward to our final two in Montreal in a couple of weeks. It’s been great.”
During the first Montreal game, Long Island broke its home attendance record, filling 7,700 seats in Place Bell. Since then, they managed to stay around that mark for their next three games in Canada, averaging a bit over 6,600. “It was wonderful to see how a country embraced us from Long Island,” Taylor told ND.
Taylor also told ND that there was a major focus last season on making the city of Montreal the “Nets home” when they were there. “I think the biggest thing was looking at changing our name,” she added. “The G-League has unique opportunities for teams to kind of take on a new identity. So, we took on Montreal and the culture and turned our name into ‘Les Nets’ for the stint of six games.”
A part of making “Les Nets” Montreal’s home team, the Long Island also hosted local basketball clinics with their full team in attendance. This helped to make themselves known that they were indeed the team to root for in Montreal. Above all else, Taylor and the Long Island Nets loved working with Groupe CH and hope to build on it this season.
“They are a temple in the sports industry, and it’s been great,” said Taylor of Groupe CH and the Canadiens. “The partnership and synergies between BSEG Global and Groupe CH, you can tell they’re a lot from a business standpoint. We both own multiple venues and multiple teams. So, they were excited about bringing basketball to Montreal, and it’s great that we were able to help support them with that.”
Long Island’s first two home games at the Place Bell in Laval, QC, Canada, will take place on Thursday, January 8th, and Friday, January 9th. Both games will be played against the Wisconsin Herd. Their final two games will take place on Sunday, February 8th, and Tuesday, February 10th, as they square off with the Noblesville Boom, the newly renamed Pacers affiliate.
The announcement also included news of Opening Night, at Nassau Coliseum: November 7 vs. Capital City Go-Go.
The initiative is a testament to how extensive Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment international marketing operation has evolved. According to NBA data, the Brooklyn Nets are the third most popular NBA team in both France and China. It’s not much of a stretch to think that the French-speaking Canada could be an attractive region to mine for the Nets. Joe Tsai is also a Canadian citizen, having spent part of his childhood in Vancouver, and until recently, Jordi Fernandez was the head coach of Team Canada.
For a long time, the NBA teams have had very limited horizons for their G League affiliates. They’ve been about development on the basketball side and experimenting with rules like Elam Ending, and so much more. However, Brooklyn has taken it further. They are now using their G League team in an attempt to open up international horizons for the big club.
“The G-League is at the forefront for being the testing ground of the NBA,” Taylor told ND. “And for the sports industry as a whole. So, to play a part in that has been tremendous.”
