LAS VEGAS — The Nets will tell you signing Jeremy Lin was about basketball. But it’s also good business.
If he even comes close to replicating Linsanity, it will be big business. While general manager Sean Marks and coach Kenny Atkinson were happy to land Lin, Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment CEO Brett Yormark surely had the biggest Cheshire Cat grin – or make that the million-dollar smile.
“The benefit of that basketball decision is there are some business opportunities,” Yormark told The Post. “Those business opportunities are hopefully an expanded fan base in Brooklyn and beyond, and a driver of merchandise sales. That’s certain. He was a top-20 seller last year in jersey sales, and given the interest Jeremy generates in China and that part of the world, our games will be televised there.
“To the extent I can take advantage of him, I will. … We didn’t have a top-20 seller last year, so given the appetite of the fans, it affects ticket sales, merchandise sales and sponsors. To the extent we can be smart about growing our different business, we need to take advantage of it, and we will.”
Lin was in the NBA’s top 20 in jersey sales despite starting just 13 games for Charlotte. He outsold Brook Lopez, despite coming off the bench in a city less than one-tenth the size of New York. And he finished second in 2012, essentially selling more jerseys in three months than all but one NBA star did all year.
MSG — which owns the Knicks — raised ticket prices by 27 percent and saw its stock vault 7 percent from $29.77 to $31.87 in just 10 days after Lin entered the lineup and sparked Linsanity, according to TIME Business. That added about $170 million to the company’s market cap, according to Forbes.
That isn’t likely to happen again. But with Lin being the first American of Taiwanese or Chinese descent to play in the NBA, and 200,000 of the city’s 570,000 Chinese residing in Brooklyn, Yormark sees the vast potential. And the Nets are thinking globally, with expectations of having more games aired in China and financial experts telling The Post that Yormark is sure to cash in on a potential gold mine.
“Give an asset like that to Brett Yormark, and he’ll find a way to monetize it,” said capital markets expert Marc Ganis, who founded both SportsCorp and Jiaflix. “Brett — if as expected, there’ll be more Nets games on in China, and if Jeremy Lin does well, so the ratings go higher — will find a way to monetize that for the Nets.”
Ganis should know. He was not only involved with the Yankees and Nets and helped get the new Yankee Stadium built but has been intimately familiar with the Chinese market for the past decade.
With Jiaflix, he negotiates terms for his clients and the Chinese government. Sportscorp China orchestrated Chinese sponsorship and rights distribution deals for the Yankees and Rockets, who had both Lin and his idol, Yao Ming. Now, Ganis said Lin’s arrival may end up as a financial windfall.
“It can be. Linsanity began while he was in New York. It continued on the West Coast and with Houston and Charlotte,” Ganis told The Post. “Some of the bloom is off the rose, but if his game comes back to what it was with the Knicks, I suspect we’ll see a nice bump in business for the Nets, as well as more attention from the media.
“New York has the largest amount of Chinese media. … If his game comes back to the extraordinary, reckless, David-versus-Goliath game [it was] with the Knicks, it could result in a nice bump in business and publicity for the Nets.”
While Lin and Atkinson have taken pains to caution against expecting another Linsanity, the fact is fans haven’t forgotten it.
“Right or wrong, fans remember Linsanity,” Yormark said. “Even though it’s a whole different time and place, he’s added quite a bit of fan engagement. Just look on Twitter, Facebook — there’s been a substantial uptick. It just shows the interest the fans have in Jeremy Lin. I’ll be going to China next month. Our strategy has always been about globalization, even before Jeremy.
“I’ve traveled around world trying to create interest in the team. I’ve been to China, and it warrants another visit. … I’m sure our games will be televised there because of the interest the fans have in Jeremy. And in the interest of creating global partners, I’ll explore it. So I’m excited both from a fans perspective and business perspective.”