Who knew that the attire of dancers and cheerleaders at NBA games was so important? As someone who’s gone to a few NBA games in my life, I really don’t pay attention to the folks dancing it up in booty shorts in such, probably because I’m not a dude. I personally live for the contests where they make you shoot from random places to win money and shoot shirts into the air out of a gun. But now that the Nets have moved from New Jersey to Brooklyn and have a whole new arena in the bold and beautiful Barclays Center, folks have decided to change things up not only with the uniforms of the players, but with the uniforms of the dancers as well. What they have to offer now are striped concoctions with high boots and a lot of leather (make that pleather possibly). To top it off, they’ve left pom poms and skirts behind for a lot of zippers and latex.

According to the designer of the uniforms, David Dalrymple, “The uniforms are feminine and strong.” The designer has teamed up with Patricia Field and worked on costumes for Sex and the City and The Devil Wears Prada.

“This isn’t palm trees and sunshine. It’s New York City, and it’s Brooklyn. It’s a different sensibility. We go hard. For these costumes, we needed things that these women can dance and move in, but we wanted to bring in street elements. We needed to find that bridge of street fashion that can actually work on the court.”

Unfortunately, the response to the new uniform hasn’t been one of excitement similar to Dalrymple’s. Instead, folks have called them out for being a little too trashy and skank-a-licious. Harsh words, but you get the idea. Huffington Post Black Voices writer, Julee Wilson, said the following about the looks: “The jailhouse stripes, leather-esque fabric and “Brooklyn” emblazed boots make these ladies look like they could definitely rough up the other NBA cheer squads — but let’s just skip the battling and stick with booty-shaking at halftime.”

And readers who checked out the looks through The New York Post were a bit more harsh:

“Keep the girls hold the street clothing , awful stuff for cheerleaders, whoever created this look is way out of their element!”

“He wanted to “bring in the street element” – well, he did it’s called street walker. These costumes are gross.”

“hoodrat elegance.”

“Henceforth known as the Brooklyn Skanks”

Yikes! I don’t know, I don’t think the outfits are THAT bad, but I will say are doing the absolute most. That  two-piece outfit with the booty shorts and short-short jacket is a bit much. The designer, who has worked with Britney Spears and Beyoncé before to help them come up with performance costumes, definitely knows how to make people look like pop stars. He just kind of forgot that these ladies aren’t pop stars, they’re just cheerleaders. But hey, I’m not going to lose any sleep over this mess.

What do you think of the uniforms? Too cute or too much?

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Image via @Brooklynettes

The new Barclays Center arena is opening this Friday with a sold out Jay Z concert, prepping everyone from the investors to the Brooklyn Nets basketball team to local businesses for a windfall of cash from the influx of new visitors. And every day, there seems to be a new announcement that further amps up the excitement for opening day.

Already, there’s been a lot of talk about how the Barclays Center threatens business for Madison Square Garden. Barbra Streisand, Rihanna and Justin Bieber are some of the other big-name musical acts that will be performing in the coming months. World Wrestling Entertainment will be there, along with the Golden Gloves, which dumped MSG after decades of hosting its finals in Manhattan. According to CBS, tickets to that Streisand concert are selling for as much as $600.

Of course, there are lots of events, lots of musicians and so lots of chances for everyone to draw crowds… not just Barclays and MSG, but also the Prudential Center in Newark.

But back to the question in our headline — What do you think about the Brooklynettes uniforms? Sure, they’re just the cheerleaders performing during halftime at Brooklyn Nets games. But, they obviously want to stand out from the usual short skirts and pom poms that cheerleaders typically wear. In addition to the picture above from a photo shoot for the New York Post, you can visit Business Insider for images from the complete line of seven outfits that include fingerless gloves, boots and leggings.

Besides generating buzz and lots of ogling, the Brooklynettes could end up generating a chunk of money too. The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders have been around for decades. The troupe has a calendar, a reality show that airs on Country Music Television, a trademark on their uniforms and has sold everything from gum to clothing. The bold Brooklynettes outfits could be the first step toward building a similarly strong brand.

Image: PSFK.com

-The New York Times  reports on the supersized influence that Jay-Z has on the Brooklyn Nets. He invested a mere $1 million in the team nine years ago, meaning he owns one-fifteenth of a percent of the team (he owns one-fifth of the Barclays arena where they’ll be playing). But he has counseled on everything from the color scheme to the logo (he designed it) to the music and the ways in which visitors will be checked at the door. Moreover, the arena will be filled with businesses that he has invested in, such as a 40/40 club, a Rocawear store and Armand de Brignac champagne. And he’s capitalized on the connection elsewhere, like in those new Budweiser ads where he’s seen wearing Nets gear. He is doing it.

-Did you know that August is National Black Business Month? The Washington Informer encourages you to buy from a black-owned business. (August isn’t the only time you can do this, BTW.)

-President Obama is offering $470 million to states who promise to use the money to create jobs and improve roads and other infrastructure. The money had been allotted to the Department of Transportation between 2003 and 2006 through earmarks which has since been outlawed.

-Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has seen his company’s stock tank since the IPO in May, and his personal fortune has gone down with it. Facebook stock closed yesterday at an all-time low, $19.87. Zuckerberg, who is 28 years old, is now worth $10.2 billion. Facebook stock debuted on the market at $38 per share. The company has lost more than $40 billion in value since the spring. Yesterday, 271.1 million shares were freed up for sale.

-Instagram has launched its 3.0 version, which includes a couple of fixes and a new Photo Map feature that Forbes argues moves it into the “media company” realm.

I’ve been frustrated with Phil Mushnick for the past five days. If you didn’t know, the NY Post writer wrote some rather inappropriate and disrespectful words in a piece on not relying on the media to evaluate bad behavior (as related to sports figures), and in the article he took a special non-liking to Jay-Z when he wrote:

“As long as the Nets are allowing Jay-Z to call their marketing shots — what a shock that he chose black and white as the new team colors to stress, as the Nets explained, their new “urban” home — why not have him apply the full Jay-Z treatment?

“Why the Brooklyn Nets when they can be the New York N——s? The cheerleaders could be the Brooklyn B—-hes or Hoes. Team logo? A 9 mm with hollow-tip shell casings strewn beneath. Wanna be Jay-Z hip? Then go all the way!”

It’s amazing how something as simple as new team colors that ironically would have been a symbol of racial equality in another point in time or context could spark such hatred—hatred the author fails to see, further making the case for his ignorance. As you can imagine, the piece went viral as quickly as charges that Mushnick is nothing but a racist bigot did, yet his only response has been if you want to find the real racist, look no further than Mr. Shawn Carter.

“Such obvious, wishful and ignorant mischaracterizations of what I write are common,” he wrote in a rebuttal. “I don’t call black men the N-word; I don’t regard young women as bitches and whores; I don’t glorify the use of assault weapons and drugs. Jay-Z, on the other hand…..Is he the only NBA owner allowed to call black men N—ers?

“Jay-Z profits from the worst and most sustaining self-enslaving stereotypes of black-American culture and I’M the racist? Some truths, I guess, are just hard to read, let alone think about.”

Mushnick’s argument isn’t new. Every so often, a white man who’s been overcome with an uncontrollable thirst to use the word n*gger verbally or in writing without being politically incorrect has used rap as the crux of his argument. It’s a juvenile, two wrongs make a right stance they wouldn’t let their 6-year-old child get away with if he hit someone on the playground for calling him names. Yet every other day, week, or month, a white man tries to prove he wants to show us n*ggers the err of our ways by pointing out the self-enslaving stereotypes of black-American culture we’ve subscribed to. Thank you, white man. I don’t know what we’d do without you showing us the light.

The thing is, what Mushnick isn’t saying is the real reason he has a problem with Jay-Z: because he can’t stand the fact that a Bed-Stuy drug dealer made it from selling heroine in the Marcy projects to being a part owner of the Brooklyn Nets and the power that comes along with that. Moving the team to Brooklyn, building a stadium there, changing the logo—all of these things are nothing more than a sign to Mushnick that n*ggers are taking over and I can only imagine how many times he crapped his pants trembling with fear over the threat of the growing power of the black race as he wrote that article. And that’s exactly why he wants to reduce Jay-Z to nothing more than a thug who calls black people b *tches, h*es, and n*ggas all day long.

(Crain’s) — Kicking off a 12-month countdown to the Barclays Center’s anticipated opening in downtown Brooklyn, the rapper and entrepreneur Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter announced Monday that the borough’s future NBA franchise will call itself the Brooklyn Nets, ending months of speculation about the basketball team’s name. Mr. Carter also said he will headline the first performances at the Atlantic Yards venue, which is now set to open in September 2012.  “There’ll definitely be more than one,” Jay-Z said of the concerts during a press conference at Atlantic Terminal, with the steel skeleton of the 18,000-seat arena sprouting behind him. Joining Jay-Z on stage were Forest City Ratner Companies CEO Bruce Ratner, Barclays Center and Nets President Brett Yormark and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz.

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by R. Asmerom

Every good story needs a well rendered setting.  For the narrative charting his rise, the one Jay-Z’s been burnishing since his 1996 debut, this is Brooklyn. He may have  deserted it for Manhattan, a place more suited to his appetite for luxury and glamour, but the frequency with which he continues to invoke the culture, lessons and aesthetics of the borough, portray a man unwilling to relinquish his status as its chief emissary.

So it made sense that when real estate tycoon and then-majority owner of the New Jersey Nets Bruce Ratner was drumming up support for Atlantic Yards, a $4.9 billion development project (to include the Barclay’s sports center) in the heart of Brooklyn, he had a sit-down with Mr. Carter.

The opportunity to not only be part of bringing professional sports back to

Brooklyn, but also cement his place in its textbook history, proved too tantalizing an offer to turn down.  With an estimated stake of 1-1.5%, Jay-Z does not enjoy decision-making power, but the bragging rights are unparalleled, especially when Lebron James may potentially enter the equation.

On March 11, 2010 Atlantic Yards held its groundbreaking ceremony.  Along with a fist pump, Jay-Z brought his comments to a close by saying “We did it again Brooklyn, shout out to B.I.G.”  For many residents, however, his power move is anything but pro-Brooklyn. To make room for Barclay’s Center, the arena that would be home to the Nets, as well as the other commercial and residential space, Brooklynites have already been displaced.

“The number one concern about the project is that it is a corrupt, undemocratic project,” said Daniel Goldstein, the founder and former spokesman for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn. Goldstein spoke to The Atlanta Post the week before he reached an agreement with Bruce Ratner’s development company, Forest City Ratner, to sell his condominium (seized under eminent domain) and step down as spokesman for the anti-Atlantic Yards group.  “It is the largest project in the history of Brooklyn that never underwent a single vote by a single elected official,” he said, referring to the fact that the majority of the 49 officeholders representing Brooklyn oppose the project.

Since Ratner purchased the New Jersey Nets in 2004, he’s been trying to move the team to Brooklyn, an effort many regard as nothing more than a plot to acquire prime real estate.

After years of litigation Ratner was successful in securing land rights to a large area near downtown when New York state rallied to his cause.  Citing the project’s public benefit, the state not only exercised eminent domain on Ratner’s behalf, allowing him to purchase the rail yards occupying a portion of the site at below-market price, but also kicked in millions of dollars in subsidies.  “It’s not about basketball,” said Goldstein. “It’s not about affordable housing. It’s not about removing the so-called blight. It’s not about any of that. It’s Forest City Ratner gaining 22 acres in the heart of Brooklyn.”

The controversy surrounding the use of eminent domain not only stems from the fact that it nullified public participation, but that it was approved by the State Supreme Court on the grounds that the area was “blighted,” which as anyone familiar with the locale knows, is far from the truth.

With the help of a consulting firm and the support of then-Governor George

Pataki, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, Ratner was able to circumvent public approval, turn a deaf ear to outraged private property owners and obtain the coveted swath of land.

“Forest City Ratner is perhaps the most powerful developer in New York State,” said Goldstein. “It is the largest publicly traded development company in the country, and we have a mayor who is now on his third term, whose hallmark way of doing development in the city is through mega projects.”

The excitement of bringing a professional sports team to a city is overwhelming. Teams can bring out a sense of community spirit and unity which ultimately helps provide a little meaning in a complex world. Cities compete to bring teams to their town because the fans want them. Cities give teams extensive tax subsidies and even offer to use eminent domain to take property away from residents who are not willing to sell their homes in order to have the stadium built. Sounds terrible, doesn’t it? Well, sometimes it can be.

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