Nets and Liberty owner buys three Brooklyn gyms in all-cash deal to grow youth program and ‘generational fandom’

Oct. 14, 2026 — Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, the company that owns the Nets and the New York Liberty, is buying its way deeper into the borough’s youth game. The group announced Wednesday that Brooklyn Basketball, the official youth program of both teams, will open three new locations in 2027 in Greenpoint, Bushwick and Gowanus, and add high school programming, a partnership with the Public Schools Athletic League and a new Community Partner Program.

The three sites were court-rental gyms run by The Post BK, a small network of indoor sports venues. According to a real-estate report by Cathy Cunningham and Isabelle Durso, BSE bought all three buildings in an all-cash deal brokered by a Newmark team. The price was not disclosed. Because the three gyms made up The Post BK’s entire portfolio, one person familiar with the deal compared it to buying a whole company rather than a few properties.

Brooklyn Basketball will be opening new locations next year in Greenpoint, Bushwick and Gowanus (formerly operated by The BK Post as court rentals). #nets

— Brian Lewis (@NYPost_Lewis) October 14, 2026

What BSE is buying

• 100 Dobbin Street, Greenpoint: a one-story former warehouse of about 15,000 square feet.
• 53 Knickerbocker Avenue, Bushwick: one story, roughly 20,300 square feet, the largest of the three.
• 483 Baltic Street, Gowanus: one story, about 5,000 square feet.

Together that is a little over 40,000 square feet of converted industrial space, all already fitted out as basketball courts. All three are set to open next year as homes for the After-School Club, camps, clinics and community events.

The growth behind the deal

The expansion lands on the one-year anniversary of the first Brooklyn Basketball Training Center, which opened in Downtown Brooklyn, across from Barclays Center, in September 2025. BSE says that building has welcomed more than 16,000 people since it opened, and that the program’s free clinics now reach more than 50,000 young people a year in more than 250 New York City schools.

This fall the Downtown Brooklyn site also adds a Performance Track for its After-School Club: three sessions a week covering skill work, team practice and Saturday game days, with league play, tournaments and playoffs. A Skills Track for fundamentals stays in place. Players move through four development levels based on skill and readiness rather than age, coached by USA Basketball-certified staff.

This expansion reflects our long-term commitment to the community and our belief that every young person should have the opportunity to participate, learn and grow through sport.

That was Marissa Shorenstein, BSE’s chief operating officer, in the announcement.

Why a team buys gyms: the generational fandom bet

The business logic is not hidden. BSE president Sam Zussman has argued in earlier interviews that the Nets, in Brooklyn only since 2012 and still without a title, lack the inherited fan base of an older franchise like the Knicks, where grandparents took parents and parents now take their kids. His answer was to reach children between roughly six and 10, the age when he believes most people pick a team for life.

Zussman has been open that the free clinics cost the company a couple of million dollars a year, and that the payoff is meant to come decades later in the form of season-ticket holders who stay for 50 or 60 years. Shorenstein made the same point earlier this year, saying engaging young people is the best way to build long-term fandom for both the Nets and the Liberty.

Owning the buildings instead of renting court time changes the math. It gives BSE permanent neighborhood entry points in three fast-growing parts of north and central Brooklyn, a fixed cost base instead of rental fees, and venues it can program year-round for both of its teams. The Community Partner Program adds another layer: selected local organizations get equipment, coaching education, Nets and Liberty experiences and an annual grant in exchange for running open clinics together.

What to watch

BSE has not said what it paid or how much it will spend fitting out the three sites. The next markers are the opening dates in 2027, registration numbers for the new Performance Track, and whether other NBA owners follow the Nets in treating youth facilities as real estate and fan acquisition at the same time. In a market the Knicks just won a championship in, Brooklyn is clearly playing a long game for the next generation of fans.