New Jersey Nets moving to Brooklyn

NEW YORK, April 13 (UPI) -- The New Jersey Nets Friday won approval from the NBA to move to the New York borough of Brooklyn.

The league said its board of governors unanimously voted to allow the Nets to relocate into the Barclays Center. The team will be known as the Brooklyn Nets beginning next season.

The new 18,200-seat arena at the corner of Atlanta and Flatbush avenues will be the eighth facility that Nets, founded in 1967, call home. The Nets currently play at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J.

"We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to David Stern and the NBA team owners for their role in making the Nets' move to Brooklyn a reality," Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov and Barclays Center developer and majority owner Bruce Ratner said in a statement.

"Barclays Center will give the Nets a state-of-the-art new home and, together, we will give Brooklyn the great sports and entertainment experience it so deserves. We are looking forward to the opening of Barclays Center on Sept. 28 and to the start of the next NBA season as the Brooklyn Nets."

The Nets are 21-38 this season and in 11th place in the NBA Eastern Conference.