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Jay-Z is unleashing a full-court press for his Brooklyn-bound Nets — hoping to steal Knick fans from lower Manhattan.
The hip-hop superstar and part-owner of the Nets is set to tip off a major marketing campaign today aimed at enticing fans to bench the Knicks and score season tickets for his Prospect Heights hoopsters.
The soon-to-be-former New Jersey Nets dribble over to the Barclays Center next fall, and Jay-Z is expected to reveal the team’s “new name” this morning, sources told The Post.
The fresh hoops handle could be as simple as a crossover from “New Jersey Nets” to “Brooklyn Nets” or be a complete overhaul for the founding ABA club originally named the New York Americans.
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It’s the first time Jay-Z is allowing his popular brand and universally recognized image to market Net tickets.
He’ll personally christen the new basketball arena with a concert there next year, sources said.
Net CEO Brett Yormark said: “Jay-Z will be the face of the team’s fourth-quarter campaign” to sell 4,400 “All-Access” premium seats at the rapidly rising 18,000-seat arena.
Their game plan is set to target Wall Streeters and residents of upscale neighborhoods like TriBeCa and SoHo.
The turf war will be fought with billboards, 150 taxi tops, 60 telephone kiosks and a whopping 250,000 coffee cups to be distributed to local stores.
“We’ll be blanketing Wall Street with the coffee cups,” said Yormark.
Since opening premium-seat sales in April, the Nets — whose majority owner is Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov — have filled more than half of them.
Ducats run from $99 a game in the lower level to $1,500 courtside — or $4,356 to $66,000 for a full season.
Season packages include perks like free food and having the first shot at buying tickets to non-Net events like concerts and boxing.
“The message is that the Barclays Center is much more than basketball,” Yormark said.
“There will be great concerts and other entertainment — so who better to deliver that message than the world’s No. 1 entertainer, Jay-Z?”
A photo of Jay-Z and an arena rendering will accompany the slogan: “Get all access to Jay-Z and other events at the Barclays Center.”
MSG officials don’t seem too concerned. The Garden is the middle of a $1 billion face-lift that will be done by fall 2013.
“While we always respect any competition, the Garden will always be the Garden,” MSG said in a statement.