Without a doubt Jay-Z has, in some-ways become the face of the Nets. Well, yeah, the organization has a Russian owner that has a bankroll in the billion price range, but when you read in-between the lines of marketing ploys and advertisements, who’s been used to push the team’s ticket sales and attendance? Yeah, that guy, Jigga-man. NYT’s David Halbfinger talks to The Launch Magazine about the rapper’s reps attempts to thwart off Halbfinger of running a story about how much…percentage wise, does Jay Hova really has ownership of. It has been confirmed that it is approximately [one-fifteenth] of one percent and slightly under a fifth of a percent for the arena, but with the cake he and his main-squeeze make while in their sleep, who’s knocking his hustle, right? And furthermore, why even hide it? Excerpts below and full interview here:
Were you at all reluctant to proceed with the story after Jay-Z’s reps turned down your interview request, especially since you had such a great rapport with him in your 2007 interview with Jeff Leeds?No, it just means a challenge. If someone doesn’t want to tell you something or information is hard to get it then the fun of the job is digging. Digging requires digging. We are diggers. Sometimes you might be digging as a watchdog on the government and sometimes there might just be information that people don’t want to tell you because it’s not in their interests and you have to kind of look to see how you find your ways to get it. The first couple of calls I made was to try and see if Jay-Z would talk to us because that would take the story in a very friendly direction presumably. There are issues with doing that. The issue if you get an interview is how much do you allow the interview to shape the direction of your reporting? In this case his people said, “No way, no how!” In fact, they tried to shut the story down arguing that this is just a hype story and why don’t we wait until later when the arena is open. They suggested that maybe he would talk to us then. We had our reasons for proceeding right now. In a way, as a reporter when they tell you they are not going to cooperate with you it’s almost liberating because anything I get is gravy. When you are cooperating with somebody and they are giving you an interview there is a kind of etiquette of those things that can in some ways cause some complications. Until an interview happens and even sometimes afterwards they can kind of hold it over your head. If you start kicking over too many rocks and calling people they don’t really want you calling they might say they won’t do the interview. Then you’ve lost an interview after you had it. But this was liberating.Jay-Z has been featured in The Times very often throughout his career including your story and a large feature that focused on his day-to-day operations when he was President of Def Jam. It’s somewhat shocking to know that you were turned down. I mean this is The New York Times. The Nets General Manager Billy King was profiled in the paper a few weeks ago. What was your pitch?It was very straightforward and exactly how the story turned out to be. [He reads an excerpt from the initial email sent to Jay-Z’s representatives that speaks on his goal of writing a “high-profile piece delving into Jay-Z’s important but not widely understood role with the Nets.”] I also reminded them that I wrote the “American Gangster” piece.That’s interesting. Maybe they were concerned you would reveal how much of the team he didn’t really own. Many people were under the impression that it was 10 percent or maybe even 5 percent.It’s very simple. He invested $1 million and that was out of a $300 million purchase price. That’s one-third of one percent, period. End of story.
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