Perth 2011 Announces Fairfax Digital as Local Media Partner.
July 23, 2010 by admin
Filed under Australia, Business, Olympic Classes, Olympics, World Championship
Perth 2011 have teamed up with Fairfax Media to promote the Sailing World Championship to an Australian audience. Director of Commercial Operations Darren Beazley has announced that the event will partner with WAtoday.com.au, who will become a silver level sponsor and official online partner to the regatta.
Mr Beazley said:
“Two of our main aims at Perth 2011 are to increase awareness of the Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships and to raise the profile of the sport of sailing. The partnership with WAtoday.com.au will provide a significant boost to the Sailing World Championships with promotion of the Event and the sport, through local and national coverage via its sister sites – smh.com.au, theage.com.au and brisbanetimes.com.au – and through international readership opportunities.”
WAtoday.com.au Marketing Manager Nicola Brandon agreed that the collaboration was exciting saying:
“WAtoday.com.au is thrilled to come on board as the media partner for Perth 2011. This is a great event for sailing and for Perth. WAtoday.com.au delivers Western Australia with high quality breaking news and we look forward to sharing this Event with our visitors.”
The partnership should assist in driving traffic to the Perth 2011 website, however a quick search of the WAtoday.com.au website shows that the media outlet is a little light on sailing content, despite Perth being the home of some of Australia’s best sailors. While the portal reports on Belcher and Page winning the 470 World Championships last week, a search for Torvar Mirsky – who represents Western Australia in the World Match Racing Tour and is ranked 3rd in the world, returns zero search results.
Stena Match Cup Sweden Sponsor, Sigma To Boost Digital Media Experience.
June 3, 2010 by admin
Filed under Business, Europe, World Match Racing Tour
Match Cup Sweden is a great sailing event. Not only do the steep cliffs of Marstrand provide a natural grandstand to watch the racing, the organisers have tweaked the event every year to make it better each time.
In 2008, Match Cup Sweden boasted all the state of the art media trappings that are now being offered by large, well funded events like the Audi Med Cup and the Louis Vuitton Trophy. There were giant screens, live audio commentary (which was simulcast on local radio) and live streaming video to the internet.
This year, boat sponsor Sigma, will also be the official strategic IT-partner. Sigma has developed an on-line strategy to integrate the digital communication with the overall experience.
Magnus Edvardsson, Business Area manager at Sigma:
“The company is in an exciting stage of development and it is important for us to involve our clients and co-workers on this journey. Stena Match Cup Sweden will serve as a good, high quality activity and a special way to get together. The efforts we have put into the sponsorship so far have really paid off and we can already see a strong commitment internally.”
As a boat sponsor, Sigma will brand one of the eight boats, which are used in the ISAF World Match Racing Tour event. In addition, they have big plans on-site during the event between the 5th-11th of July.
The event organizer is excited with the new partnership in many ways.
Martin Sohtell, Event manager of Stena Match Cup Sweden:
“It’s great to have Sigma as partner to the event and our cooperation got off to a flying start. Sigma has an innovative organization and great skills, which will benefit the event in many ways. Shortly, we will have the pleasure to launch a digital platform for our overall communication, which adds a new dimension to the entire event, all thanks to Sigma.”
More World Match Racing Tour News…
‘SailStream’ Will Allow Spectators to Be the Producer of Sailing Coverage.
June 1, 2010 by admin
Filed under Europe, Marketing Technology, Olympic Classes, World Championship
Sailing continues to push the boundaries of the way the sport is delivered to its audience. While Russell Coutts and the folk behind the next America’s Cup think about TV, the RS:X World Windsurfing Championships are planning to present a new integrated media platform combining tracking with live video images that can be controlled by the watcher.
The City of Kerteminde in Denmark will stage the 2010 RS:X World Windsurfing Championships from 27 August – 5 September and the event will feature a new platform created by Zenitel and TracTrac.
‘Sailstream – You are the producer’ will allow spectators in Kerteminde to watch the racing on giant screens ashore and give a global audience the opportunity to watch live action on their computer screens. The idea behind the concept is a combination of GPS-tracking, live streaming and course commentary, which should make the spectator experience exceptionally exciting.
Jacob Møhl from Sail Event Kerteminde says:
“This game changing technology lets the spectator choose which video stream he or she wishes to watch, hence the tag line ‘You Are The Producer’. Both the tracking technology and live video images will be seen on the same web page.”
The core of the concept is that three or more video cameras can move independently from point to point on the race track, transmitting directly from the water to the Internet. This will allow key points of the course to be moniored including the start, mark roundings and slalom sections of the course as well as the finish.
Spectators can choose the prefferred camera angle and the GPS tracking adds an extra data stream to make following the competitors more easy. Live commentary will add yet another layer of coverage to explain the images to a wider audience.
Mike Dempsey, RS:X Class President said:
“It’s fantastic for the RS:X Class to be so closely involved in this cutting edge development which will bring Olympic sailing closer to a global audience than ever before. We have been working hard to develop our online media presence for three years. Now with ‘Sailstream’, we’re moving on to cloud servers to handle the expected traffic.”
The city of Kerteminde, anxious to brand itself as the world’s most cozy Lilliputian sailing city will be dressed for the RS:X World Championships. It has officially named the week ‘World Water Week’ and will stage a lot of water related side-activities.
More Streaming and Tracking News…
Thrane & Thrane Renew Volvo Ocean Race Sponsorship Deal.
Much of the success of the Volvo Ocean Race is due to the way in which it delivers media content. Placing locked-off cameras on the top of hills and pointing them at a match racing course is one thing, but getting HD video off a Volvo 70 doing 30 kts in the middle of nowhere is another challenge altogether. The technology that has delivered the content for the last two editions of the Volvo Ocean Race will play a large part again with Thrane & Thrane announcing that it will play a vital role in delivering the close-up, onboard action.
The Copenhagen based company has signed up to become Official Sponsor of Satellite and Radio Communications Equipment for the third consecutive race. The agreement means that Thrane & Thrane’s latest generations of SAILOR® FleetBroadband and VHF equipment will be onboard every cutting-edge Volvo Open 70 as they line up in Alicante for the start of the race in October 2011.
Knut Frostad, Volvo Ocean Race CEO said:
“We have once again selected Thrane & Thrane to provide a comprehensive communications package for the teams, based on the support and faultless performance of the SAILOR equipment in the previous two races. We need the latest and best technology to ensure our vision and commitment of bringing the extreme offshore racing to a global TV and web audience. In this context we’re delighted to have Thrane & Thrane back onboard, and we’re confident that their latest FleetBroadband and VHF solutions will facilitate unmatched broadband and safety communication to the racing crews.”
The scope of supply for the 2011-2012 race includes new generation products. With the World’s first 2nd generation FleetBroadband antenna, the in-house developed SAILOR 500 FleetBroadband will be the central communication hub for each race team. From upload of race footage, reports and interviews for television and web, to download of weather data vital for competitive navigation performance, all of the teams will benefit from true broadband communication along the entire course around the globe.
The teams will also benefit from the compact SAILOR 150 FleetBroadband for crew voice calling and IP data whilst two SAILOR mini-C systems will be onboard for constant positioning data and global safety communication.
Walther Thygesen, CEO, Thrane & Thrane said:
“The Volvo Ocean Race really is about Life at the Extreme so we relish the challenge of putting our equipment through its paces once again. It is the ultimate test platform and we receive invaluable and immediate feedback from the crews, which has made Volvo Ocean Race an integral part of our product development process. Our products have performed consistently successful during the two previous races and if the SAILOR products can withstand such an ultimate test, then their credentials as the toughest most reliable communications equipment for all maritime applications are well deserved.”
America’s Cup Engineered For Anti-Climax.
February 11, 2010 by admin
Filed under Americas Cup, Spain, USA
The 33rd America’s Cup is once again tarnishing the sport of sailing. The question on the minds (and lips) of the ordinary fan in the street, after the second race cancellation in 3 days, is “How can a 90 foot boat not be able to handle 17knts of wind and 1.3 metre waves?”
The sailing public has been conditioned to think of sailors as a hardy lot. The Volvo Ocean Race is extreme sailing and the Vendee Globe competitors can manage the Southern Ocean on their own. The America’s Cup and the Olympics has also had its fair share of challenging conditions.
But the 33rd Edition of the America’s Cup is different. The competing teams have been so focused on trying to outwit and outmanoeuvre each other, that they have ended up with boats apparently so fragile that they can’t sail in conditions that most sailors would relish.
The result is that the sport in this form cannot be televised. Fans are expected to be able to just sit and wait, not just for a few hours, but days. Even Wimbledon, without a roof and the fickle British weather, usually manages to complete the required matches in its TV window.
The other question that people on the outside are asking is, why do you have to wait a day between race days? The official line is that the Deed of Gift requires it, but since we have been trained to read every single word in the document. Here’s what it says:
‘and one week day shall intervene between the conclusion of one race and the starting of the next race.’
Here’s the text that appears in the Notice of Race:
The Race Committee shall add at any time any number of additional Reserve Days as may be necessary to determine a winner of the Match. Both competitors have agreed one (1) day shall intervene between each completed race and such intervening day need not be a week day.
If a race is cancelled, abandoned or postponed that race will be sailed on the next scheduled date and the subsequent races shall be postponed for the day accordingly.
It’s all very pedantic and traditional. It’s completely baffling to a mass market and it ultimately has a detrimental effect on the perception of the sport. Organisers need to abandon the idea that the quirks of of the sport somehow make it special. The America’s Cup is one of the only sailing events that broadcasters would consider televising live, but after two days of sitting and waiting it is understandable why the official web feed is being given away (for a small fee).
Luckily, the America’s Cup is only one event amongst many in sailing and we still have events like the Volvo Ocean Race and the Extreme Sailing Series that are run by people who understand that the sailors are not the only stakeholders and modifications have to be made to make the event as attractive as possible for television. Sailing can be broadcast live – the Sydney Hobart Race starts at the same time on the same day, irrespective of the weather. The first race of the 33rd America’s Cup is now scheduled to be run on Friday.
Coverage of the 33rd America’s Cup is presented by the DARK BLUE BOOK
