Brooklyn Nets stadium NYC

The Barclays Centre is a modern stadium located in the borough of Brooklyn, best known as the home ground of the Brooklyn Nets. Fancy experiencing the magic of the NBA?

Unlike a few years ago, it is now possible to visit the Barclays Centre without attending a match or concert, as the venue currently offers guided tours that allow you to explore behind-the-scenes areas, discover some of its most iconic moments and delve into Brooklyn’s sporting and cultural history.

The Barclays Centre remains the home of the Brooklyn Nets and also hosts the WNBA’s New York Liberty, as well as concerts and other major events. The New York Islanders no longer play there: since 2021, they have been playing their home matches at the UBS Arena.

Buy tickets for the Brooklyn Nets

If, during your trip to New York, you want to experience the incredible atmosphere and excitement that this sport generates on the East Coast, my advice is to book your tickets for the Brooklyn Nets as soon as possible.

Demand for NBA matches is extremely high and tickets sell out months in advance. In my article on how to watch NBA matches in New York
I explain in detail how the basketball season works, the stages it’s divided into, and how to buy NBA tickets.

You have two options for buying tickets for the Brooklyn Nets:

Buy them online in advance

If basketball is your passion and you’ve included an NBA match in your trip to New York, I recommend that you buy your basketball tickets online before you travel. There are several reasons for this; let me explain why:

• To get the best seat at the Barclays Centre at the cheapest price, the key is to buy your tickets as early as possible. Demand for NBA matches is extremely high, so tickets usually sell out in a flash as soon as they go on sale.
• The American ticket market is dynamic, which means that prices rise as the match date approaches and availability decreases (just as happens with flights, for example). If you wait too long to book them, you run the risk of missing out on basketball tickets altogether, or of only finding a few left at a high price and in sections with poorer visibility.
• Another advantage of buying basketball tickets online is that you can choose your favourite seat at the Barclays Centre to watch the Brooklyn Nets.

In my opinion, this is the easiest, safest and quickest option. What’s more, having your tickets ready at home gives you great peace of mind.

At the stadium ticket offices

In my experience, I don’t think this is the best option. Here’s why:

• To start with, buying tickets for the Brooklyn Nets once you’ve arrived in New York means you’ll have to make your way to the Barclays Centre, work around the ticket office opening hours and queue for ages to buy them.
• This means you’ll waste a huge amount of your holiday queuing at the stadium gates when you could be spending that time visiting the Statue of Liberty or seeing a musical on Broadway, amongst many other things.
• What’s more, there’ll be fewer options available – and they might even be at exorbitant prices – or they may well have sold out altogether due to the high demand for NBA tickets.

Beware of ticket touts

If I had to give you one last piece of advice when buying your basketball tickets, it would be to be very wary of ticket touts in the vicinity of the stadium. You’re likely to end up paying an exorbitant price for tickets with poor visibility or, in the worst-case scenario, for counterfeit tickets that won’t grant you access to the match.

When choosing basketball tickets at the Barclays Centre, an important factor is your budget, as the price of seats usually depends directly on how close you are to the court.

The cheapest tickets are for the seats furthest away and highest up, as well as those in the corners and next to the wall, whilst the price rises as you get closer to the court.

At the Barclays Centre, the best section is along the sidelines, almost right at the edge of the court, where you can watch the game and see the players almost as if you were part of the team – although these are the most expensive seats. Behind the baskets is also where you’ll often find quite reasonable prices, if you want to watch the NBA stars up close without spending VIP-level amounts.

You can view the views from each seat

In any case, when you buy basketball tickets online to see the Brooklyn Nets, an image will appear on your screen showing the exact views from each section, so you can get a better idea when choosing and know what to expect from each seat.

The tickets will be e-tickets and you’ll receive them by email so you can access them whenever you need to. Just bear in mind that in the United States, for security reasons, tickets are usually issued a few days before the match, so it might take a little while to receive them, but don’t worry – this is normal and they always arrive on time.

Do I need to print them out?

My advice is to read the instructions you receive in your email carefully, as it’s usually not necessary to print them out. However, if your tickets are in PDF format and you need to print them but are already away from home, the solution is simple. If you need to, your hotel will help you print them, or you can search Google Maps for a Staples (a stationery shop) or a Copy Centre to print them near your accommodation or the stadium.

And if I don’t have internet access, how do I access my tickets?

If you don’t have a stable connection or don’t have mobile data on your phone whilst travelling in New York, don’t worry. You can always download them at your hotel or at any public venue with guest Wi-Fi (such as a café or restaurant) so that you have them ready when you arrive at the stadium.

On days when the Brooklyn Nets are playing at the Barclays Centre, the city takes on a special atmosphere. You can feel it in the air, and there’s even more excitement and hustle and bustle than usual on the streets of New York.

On match day, I recommend arriving at the stadium at least an hour early soyou can take your time getting there, go through security, find your seats and enjoy the pre-match spectacle – listening to the US national anthem, watching the cheerleaders’ performance and seeing the players take to the court. The crowd welcomes them as if they were heroes!

How to get to the Barclays Centre?

If you’ve bought basketball tickets to watch the Brooklyn Nets play at home, my advice is to make the most of the day by taking a tour of Brooklyn, which, with its industrial past and strong cultural identity, is well worth a visit.

You can walk there by crossing the magnificent Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan and have a stroll around before the match starts. In my article ‘10 things to do and see in Brooklyn’, I give you some ideas for sightseeing in the area and having a brilliant time.

If you’ve got another activity planned for that day and want to head straight to the Barclays Centre to watch the match, you can take public transport, but it’s important to bear in mind traffic or rush-hour times so you don’t arrive late at the Barclays Centre.

Inside the Barclays Centre there are various food and drink stalls where you can buy a snack whilst watching the match, but prices are considerably higher than outside. For example, a hot dog can cost around $7, a soft drink around $6.50 and a bottle of water approximately $5.

As you’re not allowed to bring your own food or drink into the stadium, I’d recommend heading to one of the restaurants in the area around the Barclays Centre for a bite to eat if you work up an appetite – such as Shake Sack, McDonald’s or Patsy’s Pizzeria – either before or after the match to celebrate the Nets’ victory.

How long does an NBA match last?

Officially, it lasts 48 minutes (four quarters of 12 minutes each), but including breaks and half-time, most games tend to last two hours or more. After the first two quarters, there’s a 15-minute half-time break, which you can use to buy something to eat or visit the toilets.

Can you bring cameras or rucksacks into the stadium?

According to the Barclays Centre’s access policy, rucksacks or bags larger than 10”x6x2” or with hard sides will not be permitted. Professional camera equipment, audio and/or video recording devices, selfie sticks and tripods are also prohibited.

Do children have to pay for admission to NBA games?

The NBA is a very family-friendly event, but when it comes to whether children pay for admission, the reality is that it depends on each team.

The Barclays Centre’s policy on children’s access to the stadium states that for all sporting events, children up to 34" in height (86.36 centimetres) can enter for free, although they must share a seat with an adult who holds a ticket. Any child who does not meet this height requirement will need their own ticket to enter the stadium.

If you are going to the stadium with children under two years of age, please bring proof of their age with you in case you are asked for it at the entrance. Valid forms of identification include a passport or a birth certificate.

You go to New York to have a great time, and even if you’re not a huge sports fan, watching an NBA match in person is one of the most exciting things to do in the United States and a unique opportunity to see some of the world’s best players up close. A real spectacle of music, dance and, above all, basketball!

If you want to go to an NBA match during your trip to New York, you can’t miss the Brooklyn Nets here. The season starts in late October and ends in mid-April.

What’s the Barclays Centre like?

When the Nets decided to move from New Jersey to New York, they chose the borough of Brooklyn as their new home and built the new stadium on Atlantic Avenue, right next to a transport hub.

The Barclays Centre is a huge arena in the heart of this borough, just round the corner from the BAM. With a capacity of over 17,000 spectators, **it is famous for being the ‘home’ of the Brooklyn Nets (in the NBA).

In addition, this arena has also hosted boxing matches and music events (in fact, several of the world’s top artists, such as Jay-Z, Ariana Grande, Marc Anthony and Celine Dion, have performed here).

If you’re a sports fan and want to attend another event during your holiday in New York, I’d recommend other options such as:

The NBA

In New York, you can also watch the New York Knicks play at Madison Square Garden.

The NHL

You can watch the New York Rangers and the New York Islanders play in the Big Apple. The ice hockey season runs from October to April.

The MLB

In New York, you can watch the New York Yankees and the New York Mets play. The baseball season runs from April until early November, culminating in the World Series, and in this post I’ll explain in detail how to buy tickets to watch MLB matches in New York.

The NFL

In New York, you can watch the New York Giants and the New York Jets play. The season runs from early September to early February, culminating in the Super Bowl. If you’re a fan of America’s favourite sport, in this article I’ll tell you how to watch an American football match in New York