The Daily Newarker

We’re just days away from Bon Jovi;s opening night at the Rock, and Devils owner and Pru Center dealmaker Jeff Vanderbeek is gladly showing the press through the arena in this piece by the ??New York Times??: “Devils Win the Race to be First”:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/20/sports/hockey/20sandomir.html.

It was Jeffrey Vanderbeek, the Devils’ owner, who was giving a tour yesterday of the $375-million Prudential Center, nicknamed the Rock, in Newark six days before its opening Thursday with a Bon Jovi concert. The arena includes an austere and capacious white concourse; slick $222,000 to $285,000 luxury suites; restaurants and club lounges that overlook the ice; intimate seating (17,625 for hockey, 18,500 for Seton Hall basketball and 19,500-plus for concerts); displays of New Jersey high school hockey jerseys; hockey-themed artwork; and an enormous outdoor L.E.D. screen that will emit high definition images allegedly visible in Manhattan.

This is clearly the Devils’ building, built by the Devils (with $210 million in Newark money) for the Devils. There is no N.B.A. team (there is an indoor soccer club, the Ironmen) to deflect attention (or to add revenues) from the Devils. As Vanderbeek skillfully gave a tour for dozens of reporters, it was difficult not to think of McMullen. He loved this team. He hated the Continental Airlines Arena (now the Izod Center) and only considered migrating to the country music capital of Nashville to make the money he couldn’t make in the state-run Meadowlands. Heck, he was an owner, but a delightfully cantankerous and bluntly candid one. He would have loved to have beaten Steinbrenner to the finish line with the first arena or stadium to open in this market since the Continental Arena in 1981.

Instead, it was Vanderbeek, the former Lehman Brothers investment banker, who opened his building before the Yankees and Mets, whose new ballparks are to open in the spring of 2009; the Giants and Jets, whose joint, $1.3-billion stadium beside Giants Stadium is scheduled to open in 2010; the Nets, who haven’t broken ground near downtown Brooklyn on a Frank Gehry-designed arena that is still expected to open in 2009; and the Red Bulls’ $140-million soccer stadium in Harrison, N.J.

“I’ve always felt it was important to be first,” Vanderbeek said, not the least because of the edge it gives him in selling luxury suites and club seats before the other teams flood the market with the elite seating from their new arenas and stadiums.

“This is different than anybody in this area is used to,” he said.