LeBron, Jay Z & Me
My Path to the Biggest Free Agent Pitch in NBA History
I grew up in Madison Square Garden. The formative years of my sports career were spent in the bowels of that iconic New York establishment. I started as a 19-year-old intern and spent almost 12 years there, working in production, marketing, video, media, and events. I had no idea my next move would be across the Brooklyn Bridge, from the Knicks to the Nets. I would end up launching the Barclays Center brand and participate in one of the biggest free agent pitches in history: Jay Z to LeBron James.
But long before that surreal flight to Cleveland, I was Director of Marketing at Madison Square Garden. I was also enrolled in an executive MBA program at NYU Stern, and considering leaving the sports industry entirely. With just three months left in the program, one of my mentors, Neil Davis, made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.
Davis was the newly minted Chief Revenue Officer of Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment. He had closed in on a naming rights partner for the soon-to-be Barclays Center but needed someone he trusted to lead marketing for the new arena and build the re-invented Brooklyn Nets brand.
Neil had overseen advertising sales for MSG Networks, the Knicks, Rangers, Liberty, Radio City Entertainment, all arena signage, and associated radio properties. He created new partnerships for MSG that grew its business over 50 percent in 10 years and negotiated the largest sponsorship agreements in the history of the MSG Regional Sports Network. Coming from him, this was an opportunity I just had to take.
He wasn’t the only MSG kingpin to jump boroughs, either. Since Brett Yormark, President and Chief Executive of the Nets, had taken over nearly three years earlier, he had successfully pursued several key executives — even Petra Pope, the creator of the Knicks City Dancers.
“When I came on board, we didn’t have a partnership marketing department, we didn’t have an events department, and we didn’t have a business communications department,” Yormark once told the Sports Business Journal. “We wanted to be aggressive in marketing, and in order to do that we needed human capital.”
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I joined the Nets in 2007, with a targeted doors-open date for the Barclays Center set at 2009. The legal battles delayed the opening, but in the meantime, I became a jack-of-all-trades for the fledgling brand. I collaborated with the architectural design firm on the arena itself. I worked closely with the ownership groups on their vision for the team. I also worked on free agency campaigns, including the most famous one in NBA history: the pitches to LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh.
On July 1, 2010, I flew to Cleveland. It was the first day of NBA free agency and the Nets were the first team to present to LeBron. As fate would have it, the Knicks were pitching him later that day as well — my past and my present going head-to-head.
As marketing lead, I was responsible for the actual presentation content and materials including a video compilation that would be played for LeBron and his business partner Maverick Carter. As its author, I was included in the incredible team sent to Ohio to execute the pitch.
It reminded me of that childhood learning game: “One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong”… Rap icon Jay Z, international Billionaire and Nets owner Mikhail D. Prokhorov, team President Brett Yormark, GM Rod Thorn (yes, the legend who drafted Michael Jordan), Head Coach Avery Johnson (of San Antonio Spurs fame) … and me. Joe Stetson. Sitting in the room with all of them, LeBron James, and Maverick Carter was one of the most bizarre moments in my entire life.
The meeting was held in Carter’s office in downtown Cleveland. We had rehearsed the presentation to an absurd degree. The video was a gorgeous, graphical mash-up worthy of New York City life, and we gave every member of LeBron’s team their own iPad with our materials pre-uploaded for later review. We had practiced every line, which person would say it, and even what formation we would sit in.
LeBron strolled in and chatted warmly with everyone in the room. He was gracious and nice — polite and incredibly smart. During the initial small talk, he realized his phone was low on battery. He reached down casually to plug his charger into a nearby outlet. This went unnoticed.
Pleasantries exchanged, we got ready to launch into the pitch. At the exact verbal queue for the video, the television screen wouldn’t turn on. Every single person in the room looked at me — the planner, the one responsible for the physical materials. I fumbled with remotes but they simply wouldn’t work. I was panicking. I wanted to die.
The future of our franchise felt like it was on the line.
Carter texted his head of operations to help diagnose the problem. I was sweating profusely. And then I saw it — the TV wasn’t even plugged in. When LeBron had reached down to charge his phone, he had inadvertently un-plugged the TV cord. We all breathed a sigh of relief. It was so simple that I had to laugh. But the 15 seconds it took to figure out the problem felt like 15 hours. I’ll never forget that sheer terror I felt.
Despite the initial hiccup, our presentation went well. Jay Z was incredibly moving and easily the best presenter in the room. He gave a soliloquy on what Brooklyn meant to him — words that could only come from someone with fierce love of their true home.
Jay Z told LeBron that when he signed with the Nets, he would immediately become an adopted son of Brooklyn.
The meeting lasted about sixty minutes. “We met, told our story, and now we’ll see what happens,” Rod Thorne later said. We headed back to the private jet. You have no idea how funny my childhood friends from Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey found this to be: Joe Stetson flying on Prokhorov’s jet.
Jay Z stayed behind to spend more time with LeBron, as we all flew to Chicago to meet with Dwayne Wade & Chris Bosh. Still in Cleveland, Jay Z actually participated in the Wade meeting by phone. But even over conference call, he again was the most powerful presenter we had.
Leaving LeBron that day, I felt like I was living in a movie scene. Every team knew exactly who came before them and who came after. On our way out, we made eye contact with Donnie Walsh and Scott O’Neil from the Knicks walking into Carter’s building. ESPN’s Shelley Smith was waiting outside; ready to pounce on any sound bite we would give. And at the airport, we saw the Miami Heat A-team that would eventually land the stars: Pat Riley with Heat owner Micky Arison by his side. It was like rival families from The Godfather passing on the streets of New York.
A few days before “The Decision” became public, Jay Z told us that he thought LeBron was going to another team. He never told us which one, though. Interestingly enough, we felt our meeting with Dwayne Wade was excellent. Almost everyone in the group thought we had a good chance to land at least one of them. It was only our head coach Avery Johnson that disagreed.
Something during our presentation to Wade gave Avery a bizarre feeling. He somehow sensed that Wade was going to get the other two to come to Miami. When I saw Avery again years later, he and I talked about how he was the only one in our group that truly read the situation right.
I left the Brooklyn Nets later that year and I’ve moved on from basketball. Now, I spend my days on the Major League Soccer pitch as Head of Marketing, Communication & Multimedia for the New York Red Bulls. I remember my time with the Nets and the Barclays Center fondly — the crazy 100-hour weeks starting something brand new.
Looking back, I’m pretty sure our minor technical difficulty was not the reason that LeBron didn’t sign with the Nets. But I will never forget my moment as a fly-on-the-wall in Maverick Carter’s office, behind the scenes with the biggest free agent in history.
