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Willis to Sponsor Brooklyn Nets Arena; Joe Plumeri Looking Forward to Working with Jay-Z

Just days after Aon officially unveiled its new, marque sports sponsorship, rival insurance broker Willis has announced one of its own. OK, it hasn’t aligned with the most popular soccer team in the world like Aon. But Willis has partnered with the arena that will soon be home to the worst team in the NBA …

… so there’s that.

All kidding aside, though, partnering with the the Nets future home, the Barclays Center, should be a good move for Willis.

Sure, the New Jersey Nets finished with the worst record of any professional basketball team last season, but they are on the rise and will soon be moving to Brooklyn (likely by 2012). For a company that has been reinventing itself and quickly expanding its reach over the past few years — first with a game-changing acquisition of HRH in 2008 and then in buying the world-renowned Sears Tower in 2009 — this is just another targeted get-the-name-out-there move.

New York is the world financial capital and, now, Willis will have a presence alongside what is sure to be a major headline-grabbing organization for years to come. When it comes to the big three professional sports leagues in the United States (the NFL, MLB and NBA), there hasn’t been a new franchise in the city since the New York Mets were founded in 1962. And Brooklyn hasn’t had its own team since the Dodgers left for California in 1958. Although there is some major opposition to arena that Willis will be putting its name within (mostly due to a corporate, revenue-seeking stadium being put square in the heart of the borough and displacing many long-time residents), there is little doubt that the NBA team that plays there will also be embraced by many others. Within its first few weeks there — even if the team is not great — the Brooklyn Nets will become one of the toughest tickets to get in all of New York. There will be buzz aplenty about the Barclays Center.

So it’s no wonder that Joe Plumeri is excited to team up with the Barclays Center, the future home of the Nets.

“Brooklyn is a great global brand that’s reaching new heights with the Barclays Center. The borough has earned a storied place in sports mythology, from the heroics at Ebbets Field to being the birthplace of legends such as Vince Lombardi, Joe Torre and Joe Paterno,” said Joe Plumeri, Chairman and CEO of Willis. “Willis helps manage the world’s most complex risks, and we look forward to both helping the Barclays Center through its multi-faceted construction process and, when the arena is opened, to working with Mikhail Prokhorov, Bruce Ratner, Brett Yormark, Jay-Z and their team to carry Jackie Robinson’s legacy forward and bring a new generation of champions to Brooklyn and New York.”

Yes, that’s right.

Plumeri is looking forward to working with rap mogul Jay-Z, who is a minority owner of the team.
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 It seems fitting, then, that just a few years after we published an article about Jay-Z’s enormous endorsement power, Joe is now signing on to sponsor a team Jay (sorta) owns. Maybe he can get Mr. Z to rhyme a few songs about insurance broking?

Crazier things have happened.

Jay-Z-Prokhorov-BluePrint

Along with minority owner/rap legend Jay-Z and real owner/Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, Willis is joining the Nets Brooklyn blueprint for greatness by partnering with the Barclays Center that will become the team’s home.