Jay-Z will soon take it back to his 40/40 Club era with a new version of the sports-themed lounge.
Hosted in collaboration with Fanatics founder and CEO Michael Rubin, on Friday (Aug. 16), Hov held a reimagined 40/40 Club pop-up during Fanatics Fest NYC. Attended by celebrities and sports legends including Tom Brady, Quavo, Travis Scott, Carmelo Anthony, Taylor Rooks, and more, the pop-up will run at the Javits Center until Sunday (Aug. 18).
For the first time, guests will have the opportunity to place live bets while they watch sporting events at the venue, as Fanatics Sportsbook will be integrated into the 40/40 Club.
But the invite-only experience also doubled as a preview to the forthcoming 40/40 Club return, some two years after its Flatiron District location closed. Popular upon its opening in 2003, outpost 40/40 Club lounges and sports bars were also opened in Atlantic City, Las Vegas, Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, and the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Frequenters at the flagship location were Hov and Beyoncé, LeBron James, Kanye West and Memphis Bleek, who confirmed the reopening news to TMZ last August.
"The 40/40 been open 15 years," Bleek told TMZ around the 3:30-minute mark of the video below. "We was in Battery Park, lower Manhattan. Nobody was down there, there's no clubs down there, we were the first."
"So so after 15 years Jay decided to close the doors to move it uptown, a little bit further to Midtown. It's not over. We're coming back bigger, stronger than ever," he continued.
But in an exclusive chat with Us Weekly, 40/40 Club vice president of operations Sheldon Robinson said that the team has "narrowed it down" to considered locations before the negotiation phase. “Hopefully by the end of this year we’ll have a lease signed and we can break ground. The idea is that we’ll have a club in 2025," he shared.
With Jay-Z being "very involved" in behind-the-scenes motion, Robinson also detailed that the new 40/40 will be a "renewed version" of the original location.
“It is all the reasons that Jay[-Z] and his partners originally opened the club," he continued. "They wanted to create an environment where guests have this sense of luxury, good service, good food, while watching their favorite sports team play, and also listening to their favorite artists. It’s combining sports and music… and we’re gonna remain consistent."