Looking Back to When the Nets Moved to New Jersey

On this day in 1977, The New York Times announced that the Nets were off to New Jersey.

“Faced with the specter of a drawn out antitrust suit and at the urging of a Federal judge to arrive at a settlement, the [New York] Knicks approved the Nets’ move after a 10‐hour bargaining session that began Monday afternoon,” Sam Goldaper wrote on July 27, 1977. “Under the indemnification pact that had permitted the Nets to enter the National Basketball Association in June 1976, the Knicks were to receive $4 million and obtained a veto over any Nets move within Knick territory.”

That year, the Nets were looking to move from Uniondale, NY, to the Garden State. The Knicks preferred for the team to remain on Long Island. In response, the Nets filed a lawsuit against the New York team at the start of July. The now-Brooklyn-based organization contended that “their indemnification agreement with the Knicks was a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and New Jersey antitrust laws.”

At this point, then-Nets president Ray Boe had sent the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority a letter of intent declaring that the Nets would be moving to the state that fall. The team would also eventually play in an arena on the Meadowlands Sports Complex.

Goldaper explained: “If the Nets were to win the suit, it would endanger similar territorial arrangements in professional football, baseball and hockey. All league constitutions protect the territorial rights of their teams by imposing an indemnity payment for moving into a team's ‘territory.’”

The Nets were originally part of the American Basketball Association (ABA) before joining the NBA ahead of the 1976–77 season. The timing of the merger is important to this story. The very first incarnation of the team in the ABA was known as the New Jersey Americans.

“The Nets were permitted to play in Nassau County only after agreeing to an indemnity payment of $4 million to the Knicks, an original franchise in the 30-year‐old [NBA],” Goldaper said. 

The Nets agreed to pay the Knicks an additional $4 million, but that wasn’t the end of this saga. Goldaper later wrote that October about how the New Jersey team “twice missed the deadline for a $320,000 indemnification payment due the Knicks as part of the $4 million owed them for permitting the Nets entry to the National Basketball Association for the 1976‐77 season.” 

The Nets were cash-strapped at this time, as made clear by Julius Erving’s move to the Philadelphia 76ers the year before. Boe explained that he sold ‘Dr. J’ to effectively bankroll the Nets’ move into the NBA. That, perhaps, defined the businessman's legacy.

In July 1978, after other attempts had failed, a group led by Alan N. Cohen purchased the Nets. Cohen was the former chairman of Madison Square Garden. That would not be the last time the team’s ownership changed hands.