By Rick Reeno
Last week, a press conference was held to officially announce that Barclays Center was selected as the company to renovate and operate the aged Nassau Coliseum, located in Uniondale, New York. The venue has a capacity of 17,686. Barclays' beat out Madison Square Garden for the Naussau Coliseum contract.
There were several East Coast promoters, like Joe DeGuardia of Star Boxing, who were pulling for MSG to secure the Nassau Coliseum contract. Barclays Center - located in Brooklyn, New York - has an exclusive multi-year contract with Golden Boy Promotions. In turn, Barclays' recent victory will provide Golden Boy with an exclusive hold on Nassau Coliseum.
Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer was very happy with Barclays being awarded the contract and appears eager to bring Golden Boy boxing events to the well known venue.
Although Golden Boy has an exclusive working relationship with Barclays, Schaefer will not prevent a rival promoter from staging a major event at either Barclays Center or Nassau Coliseum. Of course, the rival promoter would have to go through Golden Boy in order to make that happen.
"I was very happy to see that [Barclays winning], because some promoters, like Joe DeGuardia, were very outspoken about Barclays getting that venue deal and talking quite negatively about Barclays Center and supporting MSG. Of course we are going to do fights with them. We are very interested in doing fights over there. What these other promoters have to realize is - if they bring a big fight to Barclays Center or to the Nassau Coliseum - I'm not against them doing fights there," Schaefer said.
"Yes, we have exclusive deal. But the purpose of the exclusive, and we have done it very successfully, is to build Barclays in Brooklyn by bringing fights on a regular basis to Barclays and to Brooklyn - and that has worked very well. With the way we've built the audience there and the way we built the fighters there - it has worked out great."
"You can take that Barclays [business] model [for boxing] to other markets as well. Maybe [you can even take that business model outside] the U.S. but I won't talk about that right now. The Barclays example has worked very well for the fighters and for the venue. But if somebody comes with a great fight to the Barclays Center or to the Nassau Coliseum - I'm not going to stop it."
