Barclays Center wants a piece of next year’s Grammys action, The Post has learned.
The music industry’s biggest awards night is expected to return to New York City in 2018 for the first time in 15 years — and is widely expected to land at Madison Square Garden, which has hosted the awards show twice before, in 1997 and 2003.
But with no contract yet signed between The Garden and the Recording Academy, which owns the Grammys, Barclays Center is making a push to grab the 60th anniversary of the awards show — or at least some related events, sources said.
“Barclays is having meaningful discussions with various partners about hosting the Grammys,” insiders at the 4-year-old Brooklyn arena, home to the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets and the NHL’s New York Islanders, tell The Post.
Barclays has put together an advisory board to help figure out how to create something new to draw fans to its Brooklyn neighborhood.
The advisory board, created by Barclays CEO Brett Yormark, includes Roc Nation’s Jay Brown, iHeart Media’s Rich Bressler, music manager Scooter Braun and CBS Radio Executive Vice President Chris Olivierio. It hopes to advise Barclays on how to entice musicians to play a slew of concerts and celebratory events in the neighborhoods near the arena.
Yormark’s management team has been pitching Julie Menin, head of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, about the role the arena could play during next year’s Grammys show.
The uber-ambitious Yormark knows wresting the Grammys show from the clutches of James Dolan’s MSG is a long shot — but he hasn’t given up hope, sources said. According to a 2015 study, the Grammy Awards brought $82 million in direct benefits to Los Angeles.
Much of that economic boost comes from events surrounding the main Grammy show.
Universal Music, Sony Music and Warner Music all hold huge Grammy parties as do digital music player Spotify and Primary Wave, a broad-based artist management firm. Universal Music also hosts an “Artists Showcase.”
From 1971 through 2003, with few exceptions, the Grammys shifted between New York and LA. The New York version was held mostly at Radio City Music Hall.
But the added cost of hosting the show in the Big Apple — $5 million more, according to NYU’s Larry Miller — has kept it in LA since 2004.
Both The Garden (Irving Azoff) and Barclays (Jay Z) have heavyweights to lobby on their behalf.
Last August, Page Six was the first to report that the Grammys could return to New York.
But scheduling — the Knicks and Rangers would have to play on the road for the two weeks it would take to set up and disassemble the Grammy set — could make it tough for MSG to host.
To help defray the cost, one union has promised some cash concessions, Crains New York reported last December.
Both MSG and Barclays representatives declined to comment on the 2018 Grammy show.
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