Jay-Z built an empire on the strength of his creativity and poetic gifts, but he held them in reserve Monday morning in his part-time role as Nets ambassador.
His turn at the lectern was brief, and his announcement anticlimactic. A master lyricist, he was as plainspoken as a city hall bureaucrat.
“We named the New Jersey Nets the Brooklyn Nets,” Jay-Z, who owns a share of the franchise, said on a muggy morning near Downtown Brooklyn.
Behind him, across Atlantic Avenue, was a rising mass of steel and glass that will become Barclays Center, the Nets’ home starting next fall. Twin cranes pointed skyward from within the arena walls. A huge banner bearing Jay-Z’s likeness dangled from the framework, facing the mall where the actual Jay-Z was speaking.
The Brooklyn Nets name had been a poorly kept secret in recent months. It was considered a given for some time before that despite public ruminations by the majority owner, Mikhail D. Prokhorov, about a rebranding. Team officials considered alternatives and convened focus groups but ultimately chose continuity (Nets) and cachet (Brooklyn).
“Brooklyn was easy, because we think Brooklyn is the brand,” said Brett Yormark, the Nets’ chief executive. “Brooklyn is iconic. It transcends the marketplace. In many respects, it’s a global name and reference.”
There was more discussion, albeit brief, about changing the nickname. The Nets’ history — aside from the Julius Erving years of the mid-1970s and the Jason Kidd period in the early 2000s — has been unglamorous and occasionally chaotic, whether they were playing on Long Island or in East Rutherford or Newark. The name inspires some ridicule: the only major sports team named for equipment.
Yet the franchise inspires some romanticism as a former member of the old A.B.A., with longstanding ties to the region and phonic ties to two other New York teams, the Jets and the Mets.
Nets officials entertained numerous suggestions — Brooklyn Knights and Brooklyn Ballers were the most popular — but said they never came close to a name change.
“Honestly, it was not something that I think ever got seriously considered,” said Bruce C. Ratner, the former majority owner and the arena’s developer.
Team officials, fans and reporters have been casually referring to the Brooklyn Nets for some time, creating an expectation that the name would be adopted once the team moved. Yormark said a new logo would be unveiled in February.
“Brooklyn is universal,” said Ratner, who still owns 20 percent of the team. “There’s a gum named after it in Italy.”
Prokhorov, who purchased majority interest in the team from Ratner last year, has been consumed lately by his increasing political involvement in Russia and did not attend Monday’s announcement.
Security was high for the event, which was staged under a large tent outside the Atlantic Terminal. The plaza was gated off from the public, with at least a dozen police officers standing watch. Although the arena and the larger Atlantic Yards project have been controversial, there was no sign of protesters.
The event mostly served as a pep rally for Barclays Center, which Yormark breathlessly referred to as “the most anticipated new sports and entertainment venue in recent memory.” The arena will be christened by Jay-Z, who will play a series of concerts there next September.
Marty Markowitz, the indefatigable Brooklyn borough president, was typically effusive on all subjects, proclaiming that “the ghosts of Ebbets Field will forever be lifted” and that “Brooklynites” would be “disrespected and belittled no more!”
Markowitz also took a moment to tweak New York’s other N.B.A. franchise.
“I can’t wait — I cant wait! — until those Knicks, a.k.a. Manhattan Knicks, step out of the way for what will surely be our N.B.A. champions, the Brooklyn Nets,” he said.
