Brett Yormark
President & Chief Executive Officer
Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment
Brett Yormark was named Chief Executive Officer of NETS Basketball in January, 2005. In overseeing all aspects of business operations, Yormark established new team standards in corporate sponsorships and has reinvented the culture of the organization. Yormark s mission has been to make the NETS the most accessible, inventive, fan-friendly, and community-active team in sports.
In addition to directing the NETS, Yormark serves as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment (BSE). Through BSE, Yormark has oversight for all facets of Barclays Center in Brooklyn, the NETS new home beginning for the start of the 2012-13 NBA season, including operations, event programming, sales, and marketing.
Under the partnership between Mikhail Prokhorov and Bruce Ratner, Yormark reports to the Board of Directors of both the NETS and Barclays Center. In January 2007, Yormark secured a 20-year strategic marketing partnership with Barclays, which includes the naming rights to Barclays Center. In addition to Barclays, Yormark has signed agreements with six major partners for Barclays Center, including ADT, Cushman & Wakefield, EmblemHealth, Foxwoods Resort Casino, MetroPCS, and Stolichnaya. Other sponsors secured by Yormark include Willis, Haier America, Phillips-Van Heusen, Anheuser-Busch, High Point Solutions, and The Coca-Cola Company.
In 2008, Yormark led the grand opening of the Barclays Center Showroom, the Manhattan sales center for suites and sponsorships for Barclays Center. In keeping with his goal to program Barclays Center with an unprecedented volume and variety of events, Yormark has secured high-profile programming alliances with the leaders in concerts, professional boxing, professional tennis, top college basketball and hockey, and family shows. Some of the programming alliances include Golden Boy Promotions, a leading boxing promoter; IMG, a global leader in event management and sports and entertainment representation for college sports; Feld Entertainmen t for family shows such as Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and Disney on Ice; Lagardère Unlimited for professional tennis; European Equestrian Masters for equestrian show jumping, and Brooklyn Academy of Music for unique international shows.
In March 2011, Yormark launched the unprecedented All Access season ticket program for the NETS at Barclays Center. In featuring the first-of-its-kind All Access Pass for premium season ticket locations, fans will receive several distinctive elements, including the opportunity to purchase tickets before the general public to non-NETS events that will be staged at Barclays Center, as well as access to receive unlimited complimentary food, prepared by award-winning Levy Restaurants, at designa t ed clubs and all fixed concession stands during NETS games, a first-time offering for a major New York metropolitan area sports team.
In addition to Barclays Center s premium offerings, Yormark is fulfilling the organization s goal to make NETS tickets available for everyone s budget. Two thousand tickets will be priced at $15 and under for each game, while 50 percent of all season tickets will be priced at $55 or less per game, and lower level season tickets start at $65.
In setting out to give NETS fans a better game experience at a more accessible home arena while still in New Jersey, Yormark was instrumental in negotiating agreements with the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority and Devils Arena Entertainment in February 2010, which allowed for an early termination of the NETS' lease of the IZOD Center and cleared the way for an interim relocation to the Prudential Center in Newark for the 2010-11 and 2011-12 NBA seasons.
Yormark's high-impact marketing gives NETS sponsors the opportunity to attach their brands to the team in innovative ways. For example, for the 2009-10 season the NETS became the first-ever NBA team to have a sponsor logo -- PNY Technologies, Inc. -- on their practice jerseys. As part of the agreement, PNY holds the naming rights for the NETS' practice facility in East Rutherford, NJ, known as the PNY Center. In addition, as a key platform to provide incremental value to sponsors and season ti c ket holders, Yormark launched the NETS Chamber of Commerce, which provides NETS corporate partners and season ticket holders with extensive networking opportunities and business education forums to drive their businesses forward.
Yormark joined the NETS after a successful six-year period with NASCAR, for which he helped build the stock-car racing company into a major sports property. As vice president, corporate marketing in 2003, he oversaw a $750 million deal with Nextel Communications -- changing the name of stock car racing's premier circuit to the NASCAR Nextel Cup -- at the time the largest sponsorship agreement in the history of American sports.
Yormark has been named the maximum three times to the "Forty Under 40" list by Sports Business Journal and was selected twice to the "40 Under 40" list by Crain's New York Business. He has been profiled in Newsweek, Fortune, Sports Illustrated, Gotham, Success, The New York Times, and USA Today, and on CBS Sunday Morning, CNN, Bloomberg TV, and CNBC.
Yormark sits on the boards of the City Parks Foundation, Darien Rowayton Bank & National Sports Marketing Network (NSMN)'s New York City Chapter. He is the proud father of Madison, 10, and Drake, 7.