Camper Extend Sailing Sponsorship to the Audi Med Cup.

Camper have extended their sailing sponsorship to the Audi Med Cup after recently announcing their backing of Emirates Team NZ in the next edition of the Volvo Ocean Race.

Organisers of the Audi Med Cup for TP52 yachts, World Sailing Management have announced the Spanish shoe company as the official sponsor of the third event of the Audi MedCup Circuit 2010 season which will take place from 20th to 25th July. The event’s official title will be Regata Camper – Conde de Godó Trophy – Barcelona.

Estanislao Carpio; Executive Director of Operations for Camper said:

“We are very pleased to be working once again with the Audi MedCup Circuit, and we are especially happy to be involved with this edition in Barcelona, the city which has a long history with Camper and with which there is a particularly close relationship after having opened our first shop, the Casa Camper hotel, the Dos Palillos restaurant and many other projects in the famous City.”

We at Camper hold a special and strong regard for the sport of sailing, we are tremendously international, but we are from Mallorca originally. The Audi MedCup Circuit is an event which shares many of our values.”

The Audi MedCup Circuit has maintained a close relationship with the international shoe manufacturing brand. Camper was official supplier on the Circuit in 2007, the same year in which they sponsored the Copa del Rey Camper Audi, the third event of the 2007 MedCup season.

Ignacio Triay, Audi MedCup Circuit Director says:

“ Given the strong relationship Camper has with sailing, with the Audi MedCup Circuit and particularly with the city of Barcelona, we are very happy to be collaborating again.”

More Audi Med Cup News…

Keeping the Crowds Happy At the Audi Med Cup.

Given that most sailing events happen too far out to sea to see, organisers are starting to think more about how to entertain those who are not on the boats, but who are enthusiastic enough to come and watch. After all, what’s the point of bidding for an event if the only people who are going to come and spend money are the competitors?

Earlier in the year, Marseille hosted the World Match Racing Tour and stepped up their on-shore entertainment so that spectators could feel more involved with the sport.

Now, the Marseille Trophy, the second regatta of this season’s Audi MedCup Circuit, has opened its Public Village. If you can’t see the boats sailing, why not come down to pontoon day and see them floating in the docks? Free access to the Public Village allows visitors to really experience the heart of the regatta atmosphere at a location which is in the middle of Marseille’s historic Vieux Port. As well as interactive contests with the sailors the sailing will be on a screen thanks to the 3D Virtual Eye system.

It’s a great investment in sponsorship activation, something that should alert visitors to the city who otherwise had no idea that a sailing event was taking place to the racing.

Rather than sit at home and watch on the internet, The ‘LiveZone’ is not the name for the race-course where spectators can follow the action, instead it is a stage and big screen that visitors will be able to concerts, contests, interviews, and broadcasting live the action straight from the water.

All this is great, but the PR is stretching a bit when it has to tempt guests with offers like:

In front of the stage, the Chill Out Zone offers comfortable sofas and atomised water cooling, for the visitor to chill out while enjoying the show.

Nevertheless, the future of the sport is in good hands. Why do inflatable playgrounds need to be shaped like castles…? An inflatable TP52 is one of the attractions for kids.

More TP52 News…

Audi Med Cup Announces Live Streaming.

A couple of weeks back, the SportBusiness New Media conference made a big deal about a game of football that was streamed live. People who follow football, especially the national team just expect that the game will be shown on live television, even if it’s restricted to pay channels. For more niche sporting events, like the majority of sailing, technology now allows for events to be delivered via the internet to a small but loyal audience.

In fact, the lack of live TV coverage has forced the sport of sailing to innovate. Sailing has seen the delivery of live audio commentary, live text blogging and even live 3D animated racing.

The Audi MedCup Circuit is one event that believes investment in cutting edge technology and innovation and improved access to the action delivers benefits to fans and sponsors. In 2010, www.medcup.org will stream a daily 4 hours programme with live action. The first Audi MedCup TV programme, to start on May the 12th.

The Circuit is a good example of how incremental technology has made the experience better for the remote viewer. In 2006 there were live mark by mark ticker text updates, in 2008 and 2009 there was live audio commentary and ‘Virtual Eye’ real time tracking.

The 2010 Audi MedCup Circuit will be streamed direct to internet viewers including dockside interviews, pre and post race analysis. As well as www.medcup.org, the feed will be sydicated through SailTV.

Content will be created by Sunset+Vine|APP who will be beam video from a stabilised camera on a TV catamaran which has unrivalled access to the fleet. There will be continuous commentary in two languages and expert comment. On board cameras will add to the racing action as well as aerial coverage. The action will be mixed at the venue broadcast centre, cut with supporting Virtual Eye 3-D animation.

Andrew Preece, Audi MedCup executive television producer explains:

“We are looking to really be able to drill into what is going on on the race course and highlight and explain in simple terms what is happening and why, what is interesting about each race. It will be essentially a sporting programme, but we aim to unravel the action, so that the action become more easily understood and accessible to a new sailing audience.”

Mark David, SailTV CEO says

“We are excited about the Audi MedCup TV package. There is certainly already an established audience, but a lot of how the audience develops and grows will be about people getting used to and trusting the technology. And of course as more sailing becomes available on the internet, so the audience is growing all.”

The Portugal Trophy, Cascais (May, 11-16) will be the first event running this new, ambitious and exciting feature. The first Audi MedCup TV programme will start at 1250 CET on May the 12th.

Audi Sponsors All4One to Compete in Audi Med Cup.

Despite the brief rule of Multihulls in the last America’s Cup, those with pretentions to the next edition have returned to monohull racing. The Audi Med Cup has announced that another ‘America’s Cup’ team will join TEAMORIGIN and Emirates Team NZ competing in the 2010 cup. Series title sponsor Audi will sponsor the Franco-German ALL4ONE team in the TP52 events.

ALL4ONE? squad was established originally by Stéphane Kandler and Jochen Schümann in September of 2009. Other German sponsors include Adidas. The Audi A1 Team powered by ALL4ONE boat will not only contest the five regattas of the Audi MedCup between May and September but also the TP52 World Championships in Sicily in October.

Lothar Korn, AUDI AG Head of Marketing Communications said:

“We’ve been partnering with the Audi MedCup for several years now and are equally thrilled with the top-caliber sporting competition and the possibilities for presentations on water and along the coast? The additional support of the Franco-German boat now provides us with close links to the team and enables us to offer our guests and customers an unforgettable sporting experience?.

The TP52 represents the Kieler Yacht Club (GER) and the Cercle de la Voile de Paris (FRA) and is currently located at its home yacht harbor in Valencia. From there, the yacht will be taken directly to the Audi MedCup season opener to be staged in Cascais (Portugal) from May 11 to 16.

Audi MedCup Circuit Director, Ignacio Triay said:

“This is great news for the Circuit, not just because we see an increase in terms of entries, but also because of the rise in quality of team competitiveness. Audi A1 Team powered by ALL4ONE means the first French team in the history of the Audi MedCup, and the combination of Jochen Schümann and Stéphane Kandler promises to prove tough competition for the other 10 teams.”

2010 Audi Med Cup Just Two Months Away.

The void left after the 33rd America’s Cup is still to be filled. The new Defender, BMW ORACLE are talking with teams and planning the beginnings of a strategy, but in the meantime, teams with America’s Cup pretentions have the Louis Vuitton Series and the Audi Med Cup to keep their teams together as a competitive unit.

The Audi Med Cup 2010 starts in two months time with the the first regatta; the Portugal Trophy. Activity throughout the TP52 fleet has been building up progressively over recent months.

Small changes to the TP52 Class Box Rule mean that all of the teams which plan to compete at this season’s five Audi MedCup Circuit regattas or the TP52 World Championships in October are required to have made the prescribed modifications to their existing boats: adding 150kgs of weight to the keel to compensate for the reduction in crew weight, moving to a ‘square-top’ mainsail with twin backstays and increasing spinnaker area and adopting bowsprits.

Organisers expect 10 to 13 boats in the TP52 class and five or six in the GP42 class including the new Juan Kouyoumdjian designed boat for TEAMORIGIN nearing completion at Salthouse Boats in Auckland.

Mike Sanderson, CEO of TeamOrigin said:

“The schedule was always going to be tight but we are on time. The boat is due to leave New Zealand in the middle of March. We have it booked on a fruit ship which means it is pretty reliable because if it gets late then the fruit goes rotten.”

Current Audi MedCup champions Emirates Team New Zealand completed their modifications in-house and have been trial sailing the new configuration on the waters off Auckland in excellent conditions. Otherwise, explains CEO Grant Dalton, the only change to their winning set up is the new paint job. They will sail with exactly the same core sailing team, with the exception of the reduced crew number.

2008 Audi MedCup champions Quantum Racing, who finished overall runners-up are believed to have taken the opportunity to update their deck profile and have made a bigger winter refit. Torbjorn Tornqvist’s 2007 champions Artemis, third overall in 2009 have a busy sailing season planned and will be back to challenge hard. Alberto Roemmers’ team of Matador start training on March 19th as a build up to the Palma Vela regatta, where up to five teams will race including Artemis, Cristabella Matador and Synergy are expected to take part.

Home hopes for the opening regatta will be with Pedro Mendonça’s Bigamist who have been winter training hard off their native Cascais. Their prolonged training together was the foundations for a very successful 2009, and so on their own local waters, the Portuguese team have a good chance of starting the 2010 Audi MedCup season on a high note.

Finally, the circuit remember the fans…

An official statement from the series says:

“The new season starting in two months will not just add new teams, rules and venues, but a new effort in popularising both the Audi MedCup Circuit and the sport of sailing.”

Fernando Iñigo, Audi MedCup Circuit and World Sailing Management Marketing Director, explains:

“We are working on consolidating the TV successes we achieved in 2009, including important innovations that we will reveal soon which will revolutionise the way we communicate the sport of sailing. Apart from that, we are designing a new and more ambitious public area in order to keep on evolving our goal of making the Audi MedCup Circuit more popular. In that sense, the two new venues, Barcelona and Cascais, are key”.

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