The increasing  importance of the Middle East to professional sailing sponsorship has been highlighted again with the announcement of Emirates Airlines continued support for Team New Zealand. Emirates Team New Zealand, with the backing of the Dubai based airline will challenge for the 34th America’s Cup, the final of which will be held in San Francisco in 2013. The announcement coincided with the launch of the team’s twin hulled AC45.

Chairman and Chief Executive, Emirates Airline & Group, his Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum said the airline was continuing its support of Emirates Team New Zealand because the yacht racing team had consistently proven itself both as a top competitor and brand-builder. He said:

“The decision also underlines our commitment to New Zealand at a time when the country is demonstrating its own strengths and resilience in the face of adversity. Whether it be the America’s Cup, the MedCup or the Louis Vuitton Trophy series, Emirates Team New Zealand has shown the fighting spirit and inspiration for which the country is renowned. We are very pleased to continue our support of Emirates Team New Zealand.”

Sheikh Ahmed outlined some of the factors that make America’s Cup sponsorship and particularly backing of Team New Zealand a good investment. He said:

“Exposure for Emirates through the team and its global reach has helped put the airline on the map in many parts of the world and with many audiences. We hope there is now the chance of building further on this excellent foundation. The features we saw in the team when we first backed it in 2004 are still there. As an award-winning airline, we can relate to its drive, focus, competitiveness and desire for excellence in all aspects of its operation.”

Emirates Team New Zealand Managing Director Grant Dalton said:

“We have made considerable progress because the Emirates Team New Zealand brand is an international leader, well recognised in the sport. Emirates Airline has been with the team since 2004 and their decision to stay with us is important. We are fortunate to have such loyal and committed sponsors.”

Dalton acknowledged that many sponsors and suppliers supported the team through a period when the America’s Cup was at its lowest. Brands including Emirates, Toyota New Zealand, a sponsor for 20 years, and Omega, a sponsor for 18 years – stood by the team between the end of the 32nd America’s Cup at Valencia in 2007, through the lamentable Deed of Gift saga between Alinghi and BMW ORACLE and allowed the team to stay together in series like the Audi Med Cup.

Dalton said the team would make a further announcement on its involvement in the 2013 America’s Cup in a couple of months.

“In the meantime we are developing the sailing team; the design team is working through concepts for the AC72 catamaran and we are continuing meeting with several potential sponsors.”

More America’s Cup Sponsorship News

Back in December when the Louis Vuitton Trophy announced their calendar, an embargo was attached to the venue of the Middle East venue that would be used. Now it has been announced that the November event will happen in Dubai.

The event will be held at Mina Seyahi, the home of Dubai International Marine Club (DIMC) next to the Palm Jumeirah and will receieve substantial sponsorship from Team New Zealand sponsor Emirates Airlines. The airline revealed to the National today that its annual budget for sponsorship and events is around Dh600 Million and the hosting of the World Sailing Teams Association (WSTA) created by Team New Zealand could be seen as payback for support over the last few years. The National reports that Yves Carcelle, the chairman of chief executive of Louis Vuitton commented,

“It is clear that Dubai deserves an event of this category, given the support that the emirate has put behind sailing in the last few years.”

HH Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, Chairman DIMC, and Chairman and Chief Executive, Emirates Airline and Group, said:

“This is a real coup for Dubai. We are honoured to be part of this fantastic event which has rapidly emerged as a renowned spectacle of sport followed by millions around the world. As well as thrilling spectators both here and on TV, it will consolidate Dubai’s status as a venue capable of hosting major international sporting events.

“We are also looking forward to welcoming our very own Emirates Team New Zealand back to these shores and, having won the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series in Auckland last year, confidence will be high coming into this event. Emirates has a great affinity with sailing and it is exciting to be strengthening our commitment to the sport further by supporting a race which will bring the world’s finest sailors to Dubai.”

The event is yet another example of sailing being used as the platform for a major event with the purpose of generating tourism money, but this is branded entertainment and Dubai is an important market for luxury goods brand Louis Vuitton.

Yves Carcelle, Chairman and CEO of Louis Vuitton, said:

“Louis Vuitton has been present in Dubai for more than 10 years. In 2010, we are thrilled to maintain this relationship through a great sailing event, while reinforcing the age-long Dubai tradition for regattas.”

The area is also looking to create a sailing legacy. The announcement of the Louis Vuitton Trophy in Dubai, sits alongside other projects in the region including Oman Sail and Sail Bahrain with Team Pindar.

Saeed Harib, President of the UAE Marine Sports Federation and CEO of DIMC, which will host the race, is delighted to be helping the growth of the sport in the region.

“Dubai was host to the Emirates Team New Zealand Pro Am Series in 2006 and Alinghi and Victory Challenge boats during the winter of 2007. With the Louis Vuitton Trophy, DIMC and our partners Emirates Airline are continuing that relationship and in doing so creating a new platform for the development of modern sailing in the region.”

New Zealand has always ‘punched above its weight’ when it comes to sailing. Considering that the country only has 4 million people, the success of NZ in sailing is remarkable. While the main game is still Rugby, sailing has a special place in the sporting life of New Zealand.

But having such a small domestic market makes things tough if you want to compete on the world stage – especially in a sport as expensive as sailing. Grant Dalton, head of Emirates Team New Zealand then needs to look outside of NZ to find sponsorship budgets for the team’s upcoming projects.

The lack of certainty about financial backing makes it hard to plan campaigns. It seems that the money will determine if the team go racing in the Volvo Ocean Race or the Audi Med Cup, not the team.

In an artilce in the New Zealand Herald over the weekend, Dalton said that whether or not the team would consider the Volvo Race would depend on money.

He is quoted as saying:

“Money first, money second, and money third. If it was to happen, we would have to have two groups. Emirates Team New Zealand would continue its focus as an America’s Cup team but that doesn’t preclude us from being involved in the Volvo.”

However, time is short – it is understood a New Zealand entry and a boat have to be confirmed by December 18 – hence Dalton’s shopping trip overseas looking for sponsors and backers.

However, even if the Volvo bid doesn’t come off, the Louis Vuitton offers an exciting future, as does Emirates Team NZ’s continued involvement in the Med Cup and the TP52 yachts.

“I don’t think any of us quite realised how valuable the Med Cup would be,” said Dalton. “It helped develop the team and combinations and raised our profile and that of our sponsors, particularly in Europe.”

The full article can be read here…

Torvar Mirsky and his Mirsky Racing Team (MRT) reached their second consecutive final in the World Match Racing Tour yesterday and as a result went to the top of the World Championship points table. That this young team from Western Australia has achieved the top spot is not surprising, what is worth noting is that the team has no sponsorship.

Your Ad Here - MRT now lead the World Match Racing Tour.

MRT are not the only talented sailing team to find it hard to attract corporate backing. Even well established national teams at the very top of the sport are finding that 12 months on from the collapse of Lehman Brothers and a sharp econoic downturn, sport sponsorship is still a tough sell.

Grant Dalton, head of the NZ team competing in the Med Cup and planning to race in the newly announced Louis Vuitton Series said last week that long time sponsor Emirates have not made a decision to keep backing the team:

We have a very close relation with them (Emirates) and they have been fully briefed but in the last 2 years it has been very hard to hold discussions and the only thing we could say was “possibly, maybe, might do, could do”. Their reactions was always, “hold on, we sponsor all those football teams and we know the ball will be kicked on Saturday afternoon”. That’s why I waited until today. I can now go and see them and tell them “it’s happening, here is the race format, here are the dates and here is the price”.

Unlike the proposed Louis Vuitton Series, the World Match Racing Tour (WMRT) is an established world championship with ISAF accreditation visiting a combination of established and developing markets. The winner of the WMRT becomes the official Match Racing World Champion, but despite producing the helmsmen that go on to win America’s Cups, the tour’s athletes don’t attract the backing of corporate sponsors to the extent that they should.

Often, there is not a direct relationship between sponsorship and talent. Corporate marketing departments obviously want to be associated with winners, but there are other considerations. UK companies may find a better fit with UK competitors – allowing them to tap into fans who lend nationalistic support. Brands also want athletes that ‘fit’ well with the image of the product or service they are looking to sell or the audience they are trying to reach. Last week Dee Caffari annouced on her Blog and Twitter feed that Aviva would not renew it’s long term support for her sailing. The insurance company has embarked on a completely different approach to its marketing – spending a reported £80 million rebranding including celebrity endorsements from people like Elle McPherson, Bruce Willis and Macaulay Culkin.

On the face of it, athletes like Torvar Mirsky, Dee Caffari and the NZ America’s Cup Team, all at the top of their game with proven track records should be able to find companies that would benefit from using sailing as a promotional platform, but the global economic situation is still making marketing departments wary. The other way of looking at it, is that these properties represent fantastic value for money.

Torvar Mirsky and MRT will be competing in the final two races of the World Match Racing Tour in Bermuda and Malaysia over the coming months.

Disclaimer: Pilote Media, the publishers of YACHTSPONSORSHIP.COM also run MRT’s website http://www.miskyracingteam.net and advise the team on matters relating to sponsorship.

Emirates Airlines are a big believer in sports sponsorship. Their relationship with premier league football and other high profile events has helped them raise the profile of the airline around the world. Each region has it’s own favourite sports and in the Middle East, the sport of power-boating has always been popular amongst those who can afford the fuel.

Emirates might have started their sport sponsorship journey 22 years ago off the coast of Dubai with a powerboat race organised by the Dubai International Marine Club (DIMC), but today, sailing is also part of the Emirates water-sport portfolio.

Emirates announced on Monday that it has returned to the waves; partnering DIMC’s latest initiative ‘Sea Dubai’, an RC44 racing yacht, which has just finished competing in the latest stage of the RC44 Series, the Malcesine Cup on Lake Garda in Italy.

Like many savvy destinations, Dubai are using the Markus Wieser and Yousef Bin Lahej-skippered Sea Dubai concept to promote water sports.

Maurice Flanagan, Executive Vice Chairman, Emirates Airline and Group, said:

“We are very excited to be able to support Sea Dubai, which is showing itself to be a really competitive team, whilst also promoting Dubai around the world. It seems incredible to think that our sports sponsorship journey began on the water only twenty two years ago; you just have to look at the wide variety of leading sports teams and events that we support to see how far we have come.

We have enjoyed a great deal of success in the sport of sailing with Emirates Team New Zealand and the Maktoum Sailing Trophy in Dubai; I am confident that we are going to enjoy further triumphs with the Sea Dubai team.”

Saeed Harib, Managing Director of Dubai International Marine Club, said:

“Emirates airline has been our partner since 1987, when they were the main partner for the first ever Class One World Power Boat Championship and have continued to support us in many of our projects since then. The Emirates brand is a very strong and we are proud and happy to have them as the Title Partner with the Sea Dubai Sailing Team.”

Sid Bensalah Team Director and General Manager of Dubai International Marine Club, said:

“It’s really natural and logic to have Emirates, the fastest growing airline and one of the leading international airlines linked with our Sea Dubai project as the association has one vision to promote Dubaiglobally. Emirates airline has supported the Youth Sailing program since 2000 together with the Dubai Junior Regatta and the Maktoum Sailing Trophy. The Sea Dubai Sailing Team is very proud to race and sail with Emirates.”

The Sea Dubai team will now head to Slovenia for the Portoroz Cup in September before their arrival in Dubai for the Dubai RC44 Golf Cup in November; followed by the Sea Dubai Watersports Festival and the Maktoum Sailing Trophy at Dubai International Marine Club Mina Seyahi.

The airline has been a long-term supporter of the NZ America’s Cup team who are currently sporting the brand’s name and logo in the Audi Med Cup circuit for TP52 boats. Emirates is also a long term supporter of the Class 1 World Powerboat Championship.

A chance to see the Americas Cup teams on the water. While their New York legal teams squabble over amicus briefs and pedantic interpretations of the Deed of Gift, 10 teams will fight it out in Auckland, New Zealand. The Louis Vuitton Pacific Series confirmed today that ten international teams from nine countries will match race on Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour for a special trophy created by Louis Vuitton. Racing starts on 30th January and will continue for the next two weeks.

“We are delighted at the overwhelming response to our concept of a friendly series for top level international teams,” said Yves Carcelle, Chairman of Louis Vuitton. “We started with the hope that six teams would race and to attract ten top entries at such short notice is a great achievement. This will be the most outstanding gathering of international sailing teams since the Louis Vuitton Cup in Auckland in 2003.”

Crews will take turns in racing one-on-one in New Zealand’s NZL 92 and NZL 84 and BMW Oracle Racing’s USA 87 and USA 98. The two American boats were offloaded from their transport ship just before Christmas and a team of 30 Kiwi and American shore crew members worked throughout the holiday period to prepare the boats for racing. The work included changes to the rigs and sail plans to make each pair of boats as equal as possible. There will be six races each day on the Waitemata off North Head, readily visible to spectators ashore and afloat. There will be a daily draw to decide which yacht competing teams will sail that day. Renowned international race officer Peter “Luigi” Reggio will fly to Auckland to head the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron’s race committee.

The Teams are 

• Emirates Team NZ (New Zealand).  Dean Barker will skipper and take the helm for the home team.
• Luna Rossa (Italy) Semi-finalist in Valencia, will have Peter Holmberg as its skipper and helmsman.
• BMW Oracle Racing (USA). Hometown boy Russell Coutts will skipper. 
• K-Challenge (France). Sébastien Col coming off a great 2008 in the World Match Racing Tour will helm the boat. 
• TEAMORIGIN (UK). Two 2008 Gold Medalists on board. Ben Ainslie as Skipper and Iain Percy as tactician.
• China Team (China). Two-time World Match Racing Tour champion Ian Williams has signed on as skipper. 
• Team Shosholoza (RSA). Italy’s Paolo Cian, who until recently was third in the ISAF Match Racing world rankings, is skipper and helmsman.
• Damiani Italia (Italy). Is a new team from Circolo Canottieri Aniene and Club Canottieri Roggero di Lauria. 
• Greek Challenge (Greece), Started by Sotiris Buseas.
• Alinghi (Switzerland). Auckland’s Brad Butterworth is skipper and tactician for Alinghi. American Ed Baird will again take the helm for the Swiss.

CNEV are notably absent from the competition.

The UAE is spending big to achieve regional dominance and sport is benefiting. Recent high profile sailing sponsorships from the region include Team Oman’s eXtreme 40 campaign, the Kindom of Bahrain’s backing of Pindar Vendee Globe and match racing efforts and Emirates continued support for New Zealand’s Americas Cup team. 

As the national carriers, airlines like Emirates and Etihad understand the connection between high profile professional sport and marketing. In an article in The National, Peter Baugartner, the Executive Vice President of Marketing for Ethihad says “Sponorship is a substantial amount of Etihad’s marketing budget, and that has a reason. Especially when you are a young brand, a sponsorship can help you to really accelerate your brand awareness.”

Abu Dhabi is sponsoring the innaugural World Yacht Racing Forum in Monaco in December. 

He points to the company’s sponsorships with international brands such as Formula One, Ferrari and Chelsea football club as examples of opportunities for the growing airline to communicate to a global audience.

The airline also targets sports such as All-Ireland Hurling, that may not be well known abroad, but are intensely popular in a market where Etihad has an important connection. “It’s something that is part of their culture, that’s very close to their heart,” he says. “We immediately built emotional loyalty that normally in the value chain comes at the very end… It gave us overnight fame in Ireland.”

After yesterday’s announcement by Emirates Team New Zealand that they would end their legal battle with Alinghi, the defender has welcomed the news. 

Alinghi, Defender of the 33rd America’s Cup, confirms that Emirates Team New Zealand has withdrawn its law suit against the team, Ernesto Bertarelli, AC Management and the Société Nautique de Genève and will now join all the other entered challengers in the process of getting the 33rd America’s Cup back on the water as soon as possible; starting tomorrow at the Competitor Meeting in Geneva.
Alinghi skipper Brad Butterworth welcomes this new development: “It is good news that Grant Dalton and Team New Zealand (TNZ) have at last stopped legal proceedings. It is great that they have seen that the legal route leads nowhere and are returning to the sport with all the other teams. We look forward to the Competitor Meetings in Geneva and to further progressing – as a group that includes the Defender and the challengers – towards getting the competition back on the water.”

“Having TNZ join the Competitor Meetings and push forward with constructive discussions alongside many other entered challengers for a 2010 event in a new class of more affordable boats is progress indeed. We welcome them back,” concludes Butterworth.

Progress. After it was reported that Alinghi would ban Emirates Team New Zealand from the 33rd Edition of the Americas Cup unless they withdrew thier legal action, it has been announced that the lawsuit will be taken off the table to enable Alinghi to compete in the Louis Vuitton Pacifc Series. The timing of the announcement allows Alinghi to get their entry in for the Auckland event before the October 31 deadline. 

Emitrates Team New Zealand Boss, Grant Dalton said today that Alinghi has committed to sending a competitive team to Auckland if the legal proceedings were withdrawn. Emirates Team New Zealand’s position has been confirmed in writing. 

“It is our view that this regatta – and Alinghi’s participation in it – is an important initiative towards repairing the harm that recent events have done to yacht racing at this level. For that reason we are prepared to respond positively to Alinghi’s commitment to the regatta by meeting its condition of discontinuing our proceedings.”

Dalton said the regatta promised to be a big event for New Zealand. Louis Vuitton and team are well down the track in organising it. We have an obligation to the many organizations and individuals who are now working with us to do anything we can to ensure its total success.

“For obvious reasons the regatta would not be the same without Alinghi’s participation. For a start our sailing team would like nothing more than meeting Butterworth and his team on Auckland Harbour in January-February.

The Louis Vuitton Pacific Series will be sailed from January 30 to February 14 2009.

Emirates Team New Zealand TP52

Last week, we reported that the Team New Zealand Americas Cup Team would have their own TP52 in the Audi Med Cup. Now Emirates, the Dubai-based global airline, has confirmed its continued support for New Zealand and the sport of sailing by renewing its successful partnership with Emirates Team New Zealand.

The news is a firm signal that big companies who understand sponsorship see sailing as being able to provide the benefits of other sports like football and Cricket. Last week, Emirates added Worldwide Partner for the 2011 Rugby World Cup, to their portfolio of sports sponsorships joining their well known backing of the Arsenal Premier League Club.

In signing the sponsorship agreement in Auckland on behalf of Emirates, Gary Chapman, President Group Services, Emirates Group, said they were as inspired by the great challenge of the last Americas Cup campaign and delighted to once more get behind Emirates Team New Zealand with this TP52 initiative, and beyond to 2011.

“Emirates Team New Zealand has proved its worth on the water as a real competitor, and, it is fair to say, it surpassed our international expectations promotionally on the global stage as a brand builder.

“When we first backed the team in 2004 we saw in it many features that we could relate to, including its drive, focus and competitiveness. The team continues to also seek excellence in all aspects of its operation and in all these respects we feel there a strong compatibility with Emirates Airline as an award-winning international airline.”

The Audi Med Cup has thrived in the vacuum created by Americas Cup uncertainly.
Many of the 2007 America’s Cup teams are involved as teams or with crewing on the boats.

Skipper Dean Barker said: “The TP52 will give us the opportunity to continue to develop and test the sailing team in preparation for the next multi-challenge America’s Cup.”

“With a crew of 15 we will be able to work on combinations and communications that we use on the Cup boats. These boats at 52ft long are like big, high-performance dinghies, something like the new AC 90 class and they definitely reward good crew work.

Grant Dalton said he appreciated the continued support from the team’s naming sponsor, Emirates. “This project and continuing support gives us a team-wide focus while we wait for final resolution to the Oracle/Alinghi legal action.”