Islanders fans across the board weren’t happy with their experience in Barclays Center, and it seems management wasn’t either as Bloomberg has reported that the Islanders are in talks with the New York Mets to secure an arena next to Citi Field in Queens. As mentioned in the piece, Willets Point is the location of interest for team management "if the Islanders’s owners and arena officials can’t agree on a series of hockey-specific improvements" to Barclays Center.
The Islanders may be leaving Brooklyn for Queens thanks to the New York Mets
The Barclays Center experiment might be over.
Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
Much has been said about the Islanders and their first year in the Barclays Center, their new home in Brooklyn after moving out of Nassau Coliseum and Long Island. Barclays was built primarily for basketball, and it showed as pictures of the various obstructed views circulated the internet and the strange sight of a white SUV in the background of broadcasts spawned its own Twitter account.
Not only were there obstructed seats, Barclays is small for a hockey arena, with a capacity of 15,700 — and approximately 1,500 of those make up the famous blocked view seats. According to Bloomberg, the Islanders averaged 13,626 fans per game, an 11 percent decrease from their last season in Nassau. With declining attendance draws at games and an overall feeling of being unwanted in their own building, it’s not a surprise that the Islanders are looking into another relocation.
That being said, the Islanders could be using the threat of a move to leverage Barclays on changes. As part of the Islanders original deal with the arena, Barclays controls the team’s business operations in exchange for at least $50 million headed the way of the organization annually. Either way, it looks as if change is coming for the Islanders once again.
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