Barclays Center Taking A Big Risk With the Islanders Move

According to Islanderspointblank.com, the Barclays Center is taking a big risk when the Islanders move there starting in the 2015/2016 season.

The report states that the team will be paid an annual payment from the Barclays Center and go up at a single digit percentage each year.  The Wall Street Journal reports that the payment will be in the tens of millions of dollars per year.

In exchange for the annual payment, the Islanders will give the Barclays Center a majority of team revenues.  As part of the deal, the Islanders guarantee to play a majority of their games plus 3 pre season games at the Barclays Center.  The risk for the Barclays Center here is that team revenues from year to year fluctuate where as the payment is guaranteed and will increase as well. This means that a bad year from the Islanders could put a bit of a damper on overall arena revenues.

When the report initially came out, I was told by a source that it was the Barclays Center giving the Islanders profit assurance and that appears to be exactly what it is.  This deal gives the Islanders financial stability that they haven't had in a really long time.

One thing this deal says to me is that I think we will finally see some money put back into the team.  The Barclays Center people aren't stupid and wouldn't have made this agreement if they thought they would take a big loss.

For more, check out the report from pointblank below:

http://islanderspointblank.com/exclusive/source-barclays-center-takes-on-arena-deal-risk-isles-get-financial-certainty/#more-43438