New York Islanders Owner Prefers to Move to Brooklyn One Year Early

The New York Islanders are soon no longer going to be known as such. The team is expected to make a move to Brooklyn in 2014-15 but if it were up to current Isles owner Charles Wang, the Isles would be playing in Brooklyn next season. According to New York Newsday, Wang prefers to move out of Nassau Coliseum this year and begin playing in the Barclays Center next season.

But the hangup is that the Isles lease to play in Nassau Coliseum expires next year and Wang unsuccessfully lobbied to get out of that lease early. While he voiced disappointment that politicians didn’t allow the move, Wang said that the Isles are committed to fulfilling their lease.

“Government works in very strange ways many times,” Wang said, via New York Newsday. “And some of them we don’t understand what the result is. We are committed to fulfill our lease.”

Wang said that while he’d love to make the move to Brooklyn now and begin playing at the Barclays Center next year, the situation isn’t in his control and he’s not going to make a fuss about having to play just one more season in Nassau County.

“It’s really not in my control,” he said. “We will work with whatever the county does. We are prepared to honor the lease, which is what we’re doing now . . . [Moving early] would be fine, but we’re set with where we are and what it is is what it is. We knew this going in.”

According to Wang, the Isles have received other offers to move out of New York in recent years but he’s made the commitment to keep the Isles local. The perk of moving to the Barclays Center would be to benefit from the revenue stream the new area is getting. But for now, it’s looking like the move will have to wait until next season when the lease at Nassau Coliseum expires. .