EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) - New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner has been getting feelers from individuals interested in buying a piece of the struggling NBA team that hopes to move to Brooklyn in 2011.
"We have received interest from potential investors in the team," Nets chief executive Brett Yormark said in a statement the team sent on Friday. "That interest is growing as it is clear that we are moving to Brooklyn. Our ownership group is as committed as ever to the success of the Nets and to the Barclays Center."
A real estate developer who heads Forest City Ratner, Ratner bought the Nets in 2004. The team has seen its attendance drop the past two years as it missed the playoffs.
Despite the troubled economy, Ratner has never expressed an interested in selling the team.
However, Rod Thorn has cut salary over the same span, trading Jason Kidd, Richard Jefferson and Vince Carter, who was dealt to Orlando last month.
Ratner must start construction of the arena by the end of 2009 to qualify for tax-exempt bonds. The Nets have maintained that they will break ground before the deadline and move into the new arena for the 2011-12 season.
The arena is part of a project known as Atlantic Yards, where more than a dozen skyscrapers are planned on a 22-acre site. The project has been stalled by financing problems in a crippled real estate market, high-priced designs and lawsuits by residents opposing the use of some condemned property to build the arena. New York's top appeals court has agreed to hear a challenge to the state's use of eminent domain to obtain all the land for the project.
Ratner recently released Frank Gehry from designing the arena and all the other buildings in the project.
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Associated Press Writer Amy Westfeldt contributed to this report from New York.