The America’s Cup World Series will feature 10 boats. That’s the big news from San Francisco, where the organisers of the America’s Cup gathered to announce the line-up for the training events to be held in Cascais and Plymouth later in the year.

9 out of 10 sailing websites went with the prepared PR headline – “America’s Cup Teams welcomed to San Francisco,” proving that even when there is news, nobody bothers to do any work, far easier to paste the press release from the communications team verbatim. Cut & Paste content rules.

The numbers are a little confusing, so here is the breakdown. 10 boats, 9 teams, 8 challengers competing, 7 announced. ORACLE racing will send 2 boats to the first round of the America’s Cup World Series exhibition match in Cascais, Portugal. 7 challengers turned up in San Francisco for the press conference and one team (believed to be European) will announce their entry later.

For many, the line-up is not a surprise. The good news is that Team Korea and the Peyron’s Energy Team are in the group challenging for the America’s Cup. Unsurprisingly Australia is not there.

The Teams for the America’s Cup World Series

• China – China Team, Mei Fan Yacht Club
• France – Aleph – Équipe De France, Aleph Yacht Club
• France – Energy Team, Yacht Club de France
• Italy – Venezia Challenge, Club Canottieri Roggero di Lauria
• New Zealand – Emirates Team New Zealand, Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron
• Republic of Korea – Team Korea, Sail Korea Yacht Club
• Sweden – Artemis Racing, Kungliga Svenska Segel Sallskapet
• United States – ORACLE Racing, Golden Gate Yacht Club, (Defender)

The reason for ORACLE Racing’s two boat team as reported by AP is because “no other defense candidate has emerged” – which is a nice one line glossing over of months of politics and intrigue that no-doubt will come out at some point. In the mean-time, the ‘American’ team continues to spend bigger than any of its rivals on the travelling warm-up show that is the America’s Cup World Series.

Although the purchase of an AC45 and participation in the ACWS is compulsory for a challenge for the next America’s Cup, it seems that at least one team has not fallen for the distraction. Energy Team, who perhaps have more experience than any other team at sailing multihulls over 60 feet, doesn’t seem to fussed about the 45 foot version – with good reason. The results of the sideshow don’t mean anything – the real competition starts with the Louis Vuitton Cup in the AC72.

While Artemis Racing are now installed as the friendly Challenger of Record for the next edition of the cup, Energy Team is perhaps the one that will give ORACLE Racing the biggest challenge. One imagines that for Bruno Peyron to put his hand up and be on the list of challengers at this stage, the team has the commercial sponsorship required to compete for the ultimate prize.

Bruno Peyron said:

“Energy Team comes to the America’s Cup with great experience in world-class multihull racing. With this new format, we see an exciting opportunity to excel in the America’s Cup. The French public are huge fans of multihull racing so this move to new, dynamic boats will be great for the French sailing audience. And I have no doubt that the passion the French have for fast multihulls will be shared globally once people see these teams racing.”

While ORACLE Racing, backed by Larry Ellison flies the American flag, other teams may have more national support. Team Korea might not have the sailing pedigree of Energy Team or Emirates Team New Zealand, but the team could bring to bear enormous resources in order to win the Cup. The backers of Team Korea are the same people who created the Korea Match Cup, from nothing and in a short space of time have turned it into a nationally broadcast premier sporting event.

Dong-Young Kim, Team Principal said:

“We are very proud to represent the Republic of Korea’s first-ever Challenge for the America’s Cup. With a new boat and new format, Korea can enter the America’s Cup for the first time with a better chance of success. We look forward to building our team and racing the AC45s starting in Portugal.”

New Logo for the Louis Vuitton Cup

The America’s Cup Event Authority have also unveiled a new brand logo for the real America’s Cup challenger series – the Louis Vuitton Cup. The logo playfully hints at the NASCAR wreck element of the new America’s Cup – portraying an AC72 backwards and upside down with the wingsail in the water. The effect is to turn the sails of the boat into a representation of a yacht club burgee.

It’s a classy looking logo, but the connotations are not great.  One might think that Louis Vuitton, who is a global leader in design would think about such things.

Richard Worth, Chairman of the America’s Cup Event Authority said about the new design:

“In every sense of the word, the America’s Cup is reinventing itself, from our cutting-edge boats to breakthrough sporting technology to our visual identity. Everything about this new America’s Cup is designed around transforming the sport.”

Pietro Beccari, Executive Vice-President of Louis Vuitton, added his view on the logo concept:

“When we started to work on the new logo for the Louis Vuitton Cup, we wanted to give it a modern and dynamic design which reflects the spirit of the competition. We began by playing with the sails and the hulls of these huge boats, from which we found the inspiration for the logo of next Louis Vuitton Cup.”

More America’s Cup News

The America’s Cup communications team have stepped up a gear, now that Oracle Racing is back home in San Francisco. The Media and VIPs are being treated to rides on ‘America’ while Jimmy Spithill and Russell Coutts show off the AC45 on San Francisco harbour. There’s no news as such – nothing that hasn’t been said before – but repeating the same message over and over again will help sell the new America’s Cup to a wider audience.

Just in case a couple of cats wasn’t enough for the Reuters of the world, Coutts capsized his AC45 yesterday, underlining the extreme messaging and allowing for a bit more sensationalism to help push the story up a few places – the promise of injuries to crewmen not a bad thing for ratings in a ‘car-crash’ television culture.

We’re not saying that the capsize was on purpose – but such an incident on such a day, with all the cameras pointed at the boat will give the TV guys some great clips for promos. Just as the Extreme Sailing Series still use footage of capsizes in Cowes from 3 or 4 years ago, the America’s Cup has some nice ‘wreck’ footage to help re-position the America’s Cup as “NASCAR on steroids.”

But underneath the show, behind the matching uniforms and well rehearsed statements, the organising comittee seems to be struggling to find cash. The San Francisco Examiner reports that only 2 of the 12 million dollars promised by the ‘America’s Cup Organizing Committee’ to the city of San Francisco has been paid.

The hitch? Tax-Exempt status. The new deal America’s Cup is not a commercial sporting event, but a charity. Rather than convince commercial partners of the ROI to be gained, private donors will fund the cup in return for tax breaks. Tax-exempt approval is expected in August. America’s Cup organisers expect that  donors will become more comfortable writing seven-figure cheques.

With just weeks to the first America’s Cup World Series event in Cascais, Portugal, there are no sponsors other than long time supporter Louis Vuitton, and entry fees for teams have been slashed to get some teams on the start line for the opening round of the upstart series.

According to the Examiner:

Some $12 million is budgeted in the coming fiscal year for the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development to conduct environmental planning and get necessary state and federal permits. Yet the nonprofit responsible for offsetting The City’s $32 million in costs has only $2 million on hand to mitigate the bill. If the America’s Cup Organizing Committee can’t come up with the other $10 million, it would have to come from San Francisco’s general fund, which is dedicated to basic city services such as police, fire protection and road construction.

The article reports Kyri McClellan, executive director of the America’s Cup Organizing Committee, saying:

“I have every confidence we will meet our obligations in the host-city agreement.”

A Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee hearing on America’s Cup funding is set for June 20.

More America’s Cup News

It’s difficult to put into words the conflict that is presented to an editor upon receipt of press releases from the America’s Cup.

On the one hand, great technological leaps forward are good for the sport and yacht racing should be recognised for innovating how outdoor sports are televised.

On the other hand, the America’s Cup should be more than the broadcasting infrastructure. There should be more incentive for fans to be engaged with the sporting competition than ‘augmented reality’ (otherwise known as lines and arrows superimposed over the action).

The America’s Cup Event Authority (ACEA) have issued a release that reiterates public statements of intent by the Cup’s televisual-technology wizard, Stan Honey, about how concepts used for NFL football and NASCAR will be applied to give meaning and insight to fans watching the event in San Francisco and the lead up America’s Cup World Series regattas.

The trick is to combine the insightful information presented via animations like virtual eye into the live action using GPS and other data-feeds. The scale and speed of the event, combined with it being on salt water gives the media people some big challenges to solve, but to characterise it as a ‘revolution in live sports coverage’ is a bit hyperbolic. After all, it is the job of America’s Cup media people to innovate broadcast technology.

The ACEA seems to have changed its sporting comparisons for this release. No metion of F1, instead the new audience for the geeky technolust output will be lovers of extreme sports.

Richard Worth, Chairman, America’s Cup Event Authority (ACEA) claims:

“Extreme sport lovers will flock to this new America’s Cup because of the broadcast, “From heart-pounding manoeuvres at breakneck speeds to capsizes that result in two-story falls for the athletes, viewers will not just see the action, they will feel like they are in it.”

Using the definition of an extreme sport as one that can kill you – rather than the collective noun for sports that are enjoyed by an energy drink consuming, bike riding, board riding sub-culture – the next America’s Cup will indeed be extreme. Tuning in to see a sailor fall 2 stories seems a bit macabre, and it’s not the kind of thing you’d think a sponsor would want to be associated with, but perhaps sports fans aren’t interested in the sporting challenge. Perhaps all they want to see is the big wreck.

It seems a strange juxtaposition for Louis Vuitton to be the title sponsor of an ‘extreme sport’ – though their website description for SEO purposes is ‘Always leading the avant-garde of fashion..’ Perhaps the extreme America’s Cup can do for luxury fashion and luggage what Rap did for cognac!

There are a lot of people who love to get geeky about technology, whether it be the materials to construct a wingsail or ‘augmented reality’,  but at some point, fans have to get passionate about the athletes, otherwise you might as well sail the boats by remote control and create a great video-game-like coverage to push it out to the wider world.

This is going to be tough in the current approach where the sailors play a supporting role to the platform. The skippers and crew are nameless, described as “Some of the world’s top athletes”, or “America’s Cup competitors”.

Jimmy Spithill plays his part as Oracle Racing’s tame racing sailor well, but he has a long way to go before he can match extreme sport legend Tony Hawk’s 2.3 million Twitter followers or even Kelly Slater’s 50 thousand Twitter fans.

We’re still waiting for the ‘ghost in the machine’ – somewhere amongst all this world beating, innovative technology there has to be a soul.

More America’s Cup news

Having the America’s Cup back in the USA is a great commercial opportunity for the Californian economy, and if the teams ever getting around to funding themselves with sponsorship dollars, then there will be sponsors who find a good match between the 2013 cup and their market, but for Louis Vuitton, the cup’s only announced partner, the emerging markets of China and the Middle East are more important than the mature, and relatively slow growing western markets.

It’s important for the Cup’s title partner to be able to leverage the next America’s Cup to their fastest growing markets, and therefore it is little surprise that China will contest the next event. It would also not be surprising to see a round of the America’s Cup World Series staged in China.

Unlike some of the other campaigns that have been announced, with little or no funding, the China Team has the full support of the Chinese Government, and the announcement also came with photos of Bruno Trouble and quotes from Yves Carcelle, Chairman and CEO of Louis Vuitton.

With a couple of years to run, and enormous resources, China Team could be a worthy challenger if they can find the right sailors.

Mr. Wang Chao Yong, chairman of China Team says:

“All boats need to be designed by the team, and built in country. We have been working with some of the best worldwide designers for hull and wings for a few months already, in partnership with top Chinese Universities. This is an opportunity to showcase China’s talents in the leading-edge hi-tech areas of both hydrodynamics and aeronautics. Our boat will then be built in China, and ready to sail by February 2012. China Team, a boat which will truly represent China, as most sailors will be Chinese.

The folks at ACEA trotted out the “Formula One cars of the seas” line again, ignoring that there is already several F1 of the seas (UIM Class One and there is also a UIM F1)

Thierry Barot, CEO of China Team has been busy recruiting champion sailors who will be responsible for training the sailing team.

“Our boat will be powered mainly by Chinese sailors, and we are very fortunate to have an elite team of international sailors to come to China and train our Chinese team”.

Richard Worth, Chairman of the America’s Cup Event Authority should be smiling. The China deal should sure up the commercial package a little. He said:

“We are very pleased to welcome our eighth challenger, China Team, to the 34th America’s Cup. China Team makes a wonderful addition, bringing another continent of athletes into our international field of strong competitors, as well as a very powerful market to add to the commercial strength of the 34th America’s Cup.”

Yves Carcelle, Chairman and CEO of Louis Vuitton said:

“China has a 600-year-old tradition of sailing! They will have to win the Louis Vuitton Cup and beat all the challengers before getting a chance to compete against the American Defender, Oracle Racing. Just the kind of challenge the Chinese relish!”

More America’s Cup News

America's Cup - Present, Past and Future

It’s only when you see announcements like those from the America’s Cup Authority over the weekend, that you realise the extent to which people cut and paste content into websites. The announcement of Louis Vuitton as a partner for the 34th America’s Cup is not really surprising, and perhaps that’s why most of the press went with the pre-prepared, PR polished paragraphs without feeling the need to add any comment.

Louis Vuitton have announced that their 30 year involvement with the America’s Cup will continue, now that Alinghi and Ernesto Bertarelli is gone. The timing of last weeks announcement by the Swiss team not to compete and the confirmation of Louis Vuitton as partner could be coincidence, but there no love lost between the two parties.

Paul Betts, a guest of LV CEO Yves Carcelle said in the FT:

Yves Carcelle, the dashing and debonair head of Louis Vuitton, invited me to spend a weekend sailing in Dubai on some of the world’s fastest (sic) and most impressive racing boats… Carcelle soon fell out with Bertarelli, disliking his hands-on business approach to the competition. As a result the venerable French luxury company stopped sponsoring the selection of the challenger who would take on the previous winner of the America’s Cup and put an end to its 25-year association with this grand sporting event.

Betts goes on to quote Carcelle directly:

“Thank God that Bertarelli found himself opposed to someone like Larry Ellison,” Carcelle told me over a glass or two of champagne, just before dispatching me for my somewhat fraught Louis Vuitton racing experience. “He [Ellison] has very deep pockets and could afford to pay the lawyers and keep appealing and counter-appealing until he eventually was able to challenge Alinghi with his BMW Oracle catamaran in this year’s contest.”

But looking to the future, the luxury goods brand is looking to become the watch of choice for the Facebook generation. Louis Vuitton will become the Official Timing Partner for the 34th America’s Cup.

Yves Carcelle, Chairman and CEO of Louis Vuitton Malletier said in the official piece:

“We are thrilled to announce today the continuation of our 30-year partnership with the America’s Cup. Having met with the team several times, we believe that the 34th edition will be the best America’s Cup yet.”

In 2013, the Challenger Series will be staged with the winner earning the right to compete in the America’s Cup Finals. The Challenger series will be once again called the Louis Vuitton Cup, recognizing the brand’s long partnership with the America’s Cup.

So while the cup is looking to innovate and rebrand for the future, the name will stay the same as it has for 30 years. Announcing the deal as if it was some great sports marketing coup, Richard Worth, chairman of the America’s Cup Event Authority said:

“We are extremely priveleged that our vision for the next America’s Cup has attracted the return of a company like Louis Vuitton. The 34th America’s Cup will culminate in 2013, marking the 30th anniversary of Louis Vuitton’s support of the sport of sailing, so we could not be more proud to see this great partnership continue and strengthen.”

The Louis Vuitton Cup will be in the summer of 2013, with the America’s Cup Finals in early fall.

Is the hype to reinvent the America’s Cup all hype? Does the Defender really want to make the America’s Cup a great entertainment event for television that attracts a young audience, or will it slowly revert to normal? Louis Vuitton are on the record as being against sponsors who don’t fit the traditions of the event. In 2007, Bruno Trouble said:

“The day we get a pizza company with its brand on the mainsail of a competing yacht, that is the end of the America’s Cup as it is now,”

The piece in the FT suggests that Louis Vuitton are still of that view. While Russell Coutts and Richard Worth are out selling a commercial package, their new title partner says that the emphasis is on returning the America’s Cup to a “sport-orientated venture rather than a commercial circus”.

Meanwhile, the World Sailing Teams Association (WSTA), which is enshrined in the current protocol for the 34th America’s Cup is reported to be being wound up.

More America’s Cup News.

The series that was designed to give America’s Cup teams something to do between protocols has been wound up. The World Sailing Teams Association, together with Louis Vuitton and the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club have announced that the Hong Kong event, which was to be raced in January 2011, will not go ahead.

There is some doubt as to whether the final event in Dubai will go ahead either, though the success of last week’s 1851 Cup exhibition match between TEAMORIGIN and BMW ORACLE indicates that the Dubai regatta might provide a fitting finale and send off for the Version 5 America’s Cup boats.

The World Sailing Teams Association (WSTA), a partnership between several America’s Cup teams and Louis Vuitton, will now probably now morph into some kind of challenger organisation, though not all teams who would seek to compete in the next America’s Cup have paid the WSTA dues.

The collapse of the WSTA and the Louis Vuitton Trophy was perhaps inevitable, though things might have been different had Alinghi won the 33rd Cup. Once the America’s Cup process was back on track, the teams involved would focus their resources on their preparations for the 34th America’s Cup. The opportunistic nature of the regattas might have been known internally in the Cup community, but to some outsiders, the Louis Vuitton Trophy looks like yet another failed attempt to create a top level world tour in sailing. This is especially disappointing, since the LVT diverted resources from more established regattas and events.

The press release from the WSTA says:

Now, the America’s Cup is back on track as a multi-team event with fair rules managed by a neutral authority and multiple America’s Cup Championship regattas culminating in the next Match. The new holder of the America’s Cup, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Yacht Club, will confirm the venue of the 34th America’s Cup, and timing (2014 or 2013) later this year. A South East Asia venue is under consideration for one of these ACC regattas.

It will be interesting to see if the WSTA ever release any metrics about the three Louis Vuitton Trophy regattas. While the New Zealand event capitalised on a national passion for the sport, the European events didn’t seem to generate the same amount of interest or coverage. Trying to maintain momentum through a 2 week event format never really worked and the scary thing is that these are the same people who are promising revolution in the 34th America’s Cup.

We wait to see if the Dubai event happens. . .

More America’s Cup News…

12 months ago, the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series was an experiment. On the other side of the world, in New Zealand, in what would be considered neutral ground (were the vast majority of both remaining America’s Cup teams not Kiwi),  ten teams, including the current Challenger and Defender of the America’s Cup, competed over two weeks in a match race regatta in two pairs of supplied boats. The boats used were ACC yachts from the 2007 America’s Cup and all teams rotated through the four boats.

It was to become the formula for the Louis Vuitton Trophy. In 2010, the LVT will replace the vacuum left by the America’s Cup shambles, but it remains to be seen what will happen to it if any certainty is restored as a result of the Deed of Gift match in Valencia next week.

Even though the Louis Vuitton Paciffic Series was relatively hastily arranged, it was enough of a success to lead to the formation of the World Sailing Teams Association (WSTA) who, along with the city of Auckland will organise the regatta from 9-21 March. The Louis Vuitton Trophy will be part of a larger aquatic festival, staged from the same venue and at the same time as the Auckland International Boatshow (10-14 March) in Auckland’s Downtown Viaduct Basin.

The WSTA member teams entered for the Louis Vuitton Trophy Auckland regatta are from seven countries. Unlike last year, the host Emirates Team New Zealand, skippered by Dean Barker, will not get an automatic pass to the regatta finals, but will have to earn the right to be there by passing through the round robin and semi final stages with a winning record. The seven other teams hoping to also make it to the finals and ultimately prevail are:

• Aleph (France, skipper Bertrand Pacé)
• All4One (France/Germany, skipper Jochen Schumann)
• Artemis (Sweden, skipper Paul Cayard)
• Azzurra (Italy, skipper Francesco Bruni)
• Mascalzone Latino Audi (Italy)
• Synergy (Russia, skipper Karol Jablonski)
• TEAMORIGIN (Great Britain, skipper Ben Ainslie)

The press release for the Auckland event also includes media value numbers for the event held in Nice in November last year. It is an interesting comparison to the numbers issued by the Extreme Sailing Series Europe (ESSE) last week.

OC Events had their entire series of six events valued at €5.9 Million by an independent agency. According to the WSTA, the single Nice regatta had a provisional media value  of over €9 Million. The WSTA number relates to 1200 articles (versus 894 for ESSE) and 354 hours of TV (versus 535 for ESSE).

The two organisations obviously use very different mechanisms to value their media return. Both can be rationalised, but such discrepancies make it hard for outsiders to make informed judgements about investments in the sport.

More information about the Auckland round of the Louis Vuitton Trophy here…

I’ve got a great idea. There’s this worldwide sporting event that does quite well. Has some sponsors, has good media coverage and backing from the governing body. If we got some good drivers together we could do something similar, with open-wheel style cars. We can have some street circuits and some track circuits and we could call it Formula World Uno. Of course it is not a great idea because if I tried to do anything like that, the FIA and the current rights holders of Formula 1 would only have to look in my direction to kill the whole thing dead.

But sailing is not motorsport and ISAF isn’t the FIA. In fact, the world governing body is considered so irrelevant to entrepreneurial promoters, that it seems they can create an event and not even ask ISAF if it’s okay. In an interview with Valencia Sailing, the new President of the World Match Racing Tour, Peter Gilmour revealed publicly that the recently announced Louis Vuitton (World) Series has no rights to use the word World in the title or to make the claim that it is the premier match racing event in the world. These rights are protected by a contractual arrangement between ISAF and ProMatch Ltd.

Though the two events are probably good for each other and sailing, it is quite amazing that the Louis Vuitton event could get so far down the track without entering into a dialogue with ISAF or the World Match Racing Tour. Either the WSTA were naive to the contractual rights granted to ProMatch – which is unlikely, or there was an arrogance that assumed that ISAF would just roll over and accept the new event as proposed.

The relevant part of a much longer and far reaching interview is here:

Valencia Sailing: This is, more or less, the same message Louis Vuitton and the World Sailing Team Association wanted to convey in their presentation in Paris 2 weeks ago. They want to build a top-tier professional match-racing series around the world. They call it the LV World Series and even the format is quite similar, since teams race in boats provided by the organization. Can you comment on that?

Peter Gilmour:

The situation with the LV Series is, in our opinion, very clear. Essentially, the exclusive rights to use the word “World” and be the premier match racing series or tour in the world, outside of the America’s Cup, have been given to ProMatch Tour Ltd. This is very clear and unequivocal. Obviously, the LV proposed series got going without consideration for that and they didn’t even talk to ISAF beforehand. I understand ISAF has written and asked them not to proceed using the words “World Series” and they haven’t received any approval. We plan to meet with Louis Vuitton and the WSTA people in about a week’s time and it really comes down to our right to sanction them, if we so wish. That’s really pretty much where the situation is. We haven’t received anything from them, no information whatsoever. Right now it’s wait and see.

As many predicted, long time America’s Cup sponsor (sorry, partner) have been working on an expanded version of the successful Louis Vuitton Pacific Series held in Auckland at the beginning of 2009. The series has strong support from well funded teams however there is bound to be fallout for other professional series.

The new tour will be called the Louis Vuitton World Series, but the organisational structure is based on those in other successful pro-sports with the competing teams forming the WSTA (World Sailing Team Association).

Ten teams will be invited to confront each other in successive duels over a fortnight on two pairs of identical boats chosen by lot. The racing boats were sailed in the 2007 LV Cup.  This concept, which demonstrates the desire to return to the original spirit of “match racing”, provides an exhilarating show and is easy for spectators to understand.

Ten teams will be invited to confront each other in successive duels over a fortnight on two pairs of identical boats chosen by lot. The racing boats were sailed in the 2007 LV Cup.  This concept, which demonstrates the desire to return to the original spirit of “match racing”, provides an exhilarating show and is easy for spectators to understand. The WSTA and Louis Vuitton plan to organise several regattas a year. Many cities of which Nice, Hong Kong, Auckland, New York and several other European venues have shown their interest.

In  a statement issued by Louis Vuitton today, America’s Cup challenger teams like K-Challenge (France), BMW Oracle Racing (USA), Emirates Team New Zealand, Mascalzone Latino (Italy) will be joined by Artemis (Sweden), Team Synergy (Russia), Joe Fly Italia (Italy) and Team French Spirit (France).

The news is good for sailing, though series like the RC44 and Audi Med Cup may suffer as teams like Artemis and Emirates Team New Zealand are unlikely to compete in both events. It should be good for the World Match Racing Tour, which is a well proven development environment for America’s Cup style match racing helmsmen and crew.

Many of these things have been announced before and have never happened, but one imagines that with Louis Vuitton’s backing and event gurus like Bruno Trouble on board, the new event has a good chance of success. A press conference will be held in Paris on Tuesday the 8th of September where more details will be released.

Now.. where do we file this?

A fascinating article from Richard Gladwell, writing for Sail-World about a new sailing World Series backed by long time America’s Cup sponsor (sorry – partner) Louis Vuitton. Our initial reaction to news like this is – do we really need another sailing competition? but it would seem that a lot of good thinking has gone into the concept, using existing events to create a progression for teams whose ultimate goal is the America’s Cup. Here are some of our highlights of a much longer article.

An final decision is still pending on an extension of the highly successful Louis Vuitton Pacific Series, which will introduce a new world series of sailing regattas using America’s Cup class yachts. Already several meetings have been held with 12 teams from 10 countries being present at one discussion. The shape of the new series is expected to be a combination of recent developments in the America’s Cup, Louis Vuitton Cup, Louis Vuitton Pacific Series, and the Acts sailed in 2005 and 2006 sponsored by Louis Vuitton.

For the first time in the America’s Cup’s 158 year history there is been no Defender essentially controlling how the Challengers can operate in the buildup to the next America’s Cup and the unique opportunity is now there to set up a new game.

The most likely shape of this new competition would appear to be an extension of what was tried in with the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series Auckland. Namely a ten team regatta, maybe 12, using two pairs of America’s Cup yachts from 32 AC.

The first venue in the series is expected to be Hong Kong, in January, followed by Auckland in February or March. Two more regattas are expected to be held in 2010, and it is believed at this stage, that Valencia will not be a venue. One of the venues could be in Africa, and Newport, USA is believed to be a strong option.

Louis Vuitton and their long time emissary, Bruno Trouble, are believed to be the drivers behind the ambitious project. A considerable amount of work has gone into the project, which is a ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunity for the America’s Cup family. It was Louis Vuitton who picked up the initiative for the Pacific Series, staged as a celebration of one of the longest running sponsorships in sport, but clearly as a test of a future event.

What the World Series will do is create a new layer of competition that will sit between the World Match Racing Tour and the America’s Cup. This layer, coupled with the supplied boats nature of the competition, will allow new teams to form out of the WMRT and go up the next stage into the World Series, and if they can achieve the results at that level, then they can go into a full America’s Cup program with some confidence.

Obviously from a sponsor viewpoint, backing a new team for a couple of years on the World Series, to see how they go is going to be a lot more attractive than ponying up for a full blown America’s Cup program. So the entry cost into the America’s Cup will be substantially lowered, and teams will be able to build a track record of performance without incurring a massive design and boat program overhead. The cost of competing in Auckland was about USD250,000 per team for the three weeks. While this is not insubstantial, with proper venue selection it should be possible to provide a good return to sponsors. A key to this will be the availability of coverage and use of a web graphics package such as Virtual Eye, on public release, as well as using the same Virtual Eye package for TV, will be a key to the take up by the major networks. International coverage of these events offers huge scope for both television and the internet – far beyond what was possible given the short notice of the Auckland based Louis Vuitton Pacific Series.

Additionally, the organiser’s ability to take the World Series into different continents around the world gives some alignment with other major sporting events, but at greatly reduced relative cost (compared to say Formula 1). Previously any America’s Cup build up series has been limited to one city or one venue or one continent. moving an event between continents does generate interest in the local event and that interest remains for following venues in the same series.

The numbers of spectators at the recent stop overs of the Volvo Ocean Race, should not be lost on sponsors and promoters of the World Series, with up to 500,000 expected to pass through the village at Stockholm. The recent announcements made by the Volvo Ocean race organisers are clearly aimed at making the event more attractive to more professional racing teams – providing certainty around dates and venues.

The Volvo Ocean Race, with professional forward thinking management and an inclusive style is a serious threat to the old type America’s Cup organisation. A new way forward is required, with a professionally organised global event. Louis Vuitton and Bruno Trouble have the record and are currently without peer in this regard, but a green light from both sides in the 33rd America’s Cup is preferred, but maybe not required.

Read the Full Article here…