Metro

Nets are selling tickets — to Brooklyn games

The New Jersey Nets started selling tickets on Wednesday for its games in Brooklyn — the first tangible evidence that the Barclays Center arena is on schedule for its 2012 tipoff.

The squad is hawking “All Access” season tickets to current season ticket holders — a first-of-its-kind initiative that offers fans such white-glove perks as concierge service and an undisclosed private entrance, along with the chance to buy tickets to non-Nets events before the general public.

And gluttons will have reason to rejoice: The “all access” pass includes all-you-can-eat grub at clubs and concession stands throughout the $1 billion, 18,000-seat arena rising at the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues.

The ticket push is the first wave of a plan to market the arena’s best 4,400 seats.

Nets Chief Executive Officer Brett Yormark said non-premium season tickets — including some low-priced options — would be introduced in phases throughout the year. Two thousand tickets will be priced at $15, and sometimes even less. Half of all the season tickets are priced at $55 or fewer per game.

Still, there will be plenty of high-end real estate inside the arena.

The “brownstone suites,” 16 luxury boxes costing $450,000 each, have already sold out. Nine of the most expensive suites designed by hip-hop impresario Jay-Z, a miniscule Nets investor, won’t be sold until the fall.

So far, the team said it has sold 40 percent of the 100 available suites.

The cheapest of the bunch are the 10-seat “loft suites” which will cost a cool $300,000, team officials said.

“We kept fans in mind, but obviously, we have a business to run,” Yormark said.

Team officials promised more announcements to come, including a grand opening date, a soft opening date — when the “community” will have a chance to get a preview of the facility — and an unveiling of the “world class” acts that will perform at its inaugural show.

Aside from the Nets, the arena will host more than 200 events in its first year, including concerts, the circus, and top-tier college sports.

The ticket announcement comes a year after a star-studded groundbreaking. Construction is on-schedule and the arena is likely to open in mid-2012, team officials said.

Nets spokesman Barry Baum said that the arena’s steel skeleton is almost 30 percent erected, the facade will be put in place in July, and the roof will be in place by the end of the year.

Yormark predicted the arena would quickly set itself apart from its Manhattan competition.

“Whether it’s the sight lines, the intimacy of our concerts or the food and beverage program that will truly bring the culinary fabric of the borough, the customer experience will be defined differently than other places,” he said.

gbuiso@cnglocal.com