While the America’s Cup is promising a revolution in the way sailing is broadcast, elsewhere in sailing, broadcasters are working on how to best communicate and broadcast ‘old fashioned’ match racing. Rather than patronise the wider viewing public and remove ‘complications’ – the World Match Racing Tour and it’s media partners Redhanded TV are focussing on educating audiences about the match racing discipline.

As a result, Redhanded TV has been nominated for a Broadcast Digital Award for their live coverage of the Monsoon Cup in Kuala Terengganu Malaysia. The Broadcast Digital Awards, run by the respected TV industry magazine Broadcast, have been growing in significance and prestige for the last few years, as Digital and Online broadcasting has become increasingly important.

Redhanded TV is nominated against some big competitors. Other nominees include the BBC and the ITV coverage of the Tour de France.

Here at yachtsponsorship.com we fundamentally disagree with the notion that sailing needs to be simplified or dumbed down. Rather, we believe that broadcasters must work harder to educate and engage the audience and that an investment by a fan in learning the rules and intricacies of the sport will lead to a longer term commitment.

Part of what Redhanded TV is trying to achieve is to get beneath the skin of match racing on a tight schedule and to the highest standard. It’s not just about the racing rules though – it is also about raw emotion of the sailors being delivered to fans both on the shoreline and watching around the world.

The Monsoon Cup live coverage and highlights shows, leverages expert on board commentary with headcam,  in-depth analysis and interviews with the winners and losers just seconds after they’d crossed the finish line.

Redhanded TV owner and managing director Sam Usher said he was very proud to receive the nomination.

“To be nominated for such a prestigious award is a very great honour for us,” he said. “We’ve built up a young, professional and dedicated team here who are all giving 110 percent to every World Match Racing Tour Event. I’d like to pay tribute to my team for making this nomination possible thanks to their dedication and hard work. We have just completed the Korea Match Cup and are very excited as we come back just two days before the award-winners are announced. This company has come a very long way in a very short time, and we are all looking forward to more high-profile, top quality projects in the very near future.”

There’s no doubt that the Monsoon Cup is a great event and PR folks have to sell as hard as they can, but the press release makes a comparison that is hard to justify:

The Monsoon Cup is to sailing what the Monte Carlo Grand Prix is to Formula 1.

More World Match Racing Tour News

Malaysian drinks manufacturer Permanis Sdn Bhd will continue its sponsorship of the Monsoon Cup for a second year. Revive Isotonic will be the official isotonic drink for the Monsoon Cup, the finale and World Championship deciding race of The World Match Racing Tour (WMRT).

Mathematically, five skippers including defending champion Adam Minoprio and Olympic star Ben Ainslie still have a chance of being crowned World Champion. The spotlight will be on the five-star Ri-Yaz Heritage Marina Resort and Spa in Kuala Terennganu for the regatta which takes place from Nov 30-Dec 5.

The event is important for the country, bringing foreign tourists to the region as well as showcasing Malaysian brands like Revive Isotonic to the world via live television and other media coverage.

Hemalatha Ragavan, Vice President of Marketing, Permanis Sdn Bhd said:

“I am delighted with our continued partnership with the Monsoon Cup, one of the biggest sporting events in Malaysia. Athletes of demanding sports such as Match Racing need to keep their energy levels up & their bodies hydrated. And Revive ISOTONIC is essential as it helps meet those needs.”

Monsoon Cup Sponsorship Manager Ramya Raj said:

“It gives us great pleasure to continue our sponsorship with Permanis and Revive. The sailors will definitely be reaching for cans of Revive as they battle it out at the Monsoon Cup.”

More World Match Racing Tour news.

As sailing becomes more professional, different business models and partnerships are being explored by promoters to deliver value to a wide variety of stakeholders. Around the world, governments are taking a bigger interest in sailing as a platform to deliver not just tourism, but other economic benefits including  jobs.

While working with government can provide extra resources and opportunities, it also brings increased scrutiny from those who might be seeking to generate political gains. Events that are reliant on public spending for sponsorship can’t point to increased sales of energy drink through the supermarket tills as proof of return on investment. Instead, promoters who work with governments and tourism authorities often have hundreds of metrics they need to report against.

The annual Monsoon Cup match racing regatta held in Terengganu, Malaysia  has reported a 30 per cent increase on its returns on investment for event, media and brand value this year compared with MYR539 million achieved last year. The event, which has become the model for other events on the World Match Racing Tour, is also a model for regions that are interested in using sailing as a tourism and development driver.

Peter Gilmour has revealed figures that show the cost of staging the Monsoon Cup was about MYRYR30 million, of which 60 per cent was borne by the government, with the rest supported by private funding. In return, the event is a significant contributor to the nation’s economy.

Gilmour said:

‘Basically, all the costs go into running and hosting the event and we get tremendous knock-on benefits like additional advertising. Thirty per cent is an average target that had been set for on a year-on-year basis. It has gone up year-on-year by over MYR100 million.

Event organisers report that The Monsoon Cup 2009 attracted 101,794 spectators, created 1,722 jobs and generated a print media value that was worth MYR24 million.

There’s a lot of economic spillover locally. Airport passenger arrivals increased from 300,000 a year to four million while a sports stadium and two brand new hotels were built in the state. All these happened during the Monsoon Cup season.

Malaysia has a eight-year contract to host the Monsoon Cup, organised by T-Best Events Sdn Bhd, the official event organiser for the competition. Longevity and certainty are important for investment and raising sponsorship from the private sector.

What we are doing now is targeting areas like attracting even more spectators and generate a higher turnover locally. So, when that starts getting measured into the local market, that is where we hope to lift the impact.

While the gross television numbers are over-inflated, the measure does allow comparisons to be made year on year. So while a figure in the billions is misleading in terms of the number of people who actually watched, the growth figure that can be calculated by comparing the same metric from year to year is useful. The Monsoon Cup reports:

Last year, 23,359 minutes was broadcast via 24 broadcasters, reaching a potential 2.1 billion households across 184 countries.

In 2008, 12,900 minutes was televised via 18 broadcasters, reaching a potential 1.3 billion households in 137 countries.

More World Match Racing Tour News…

The structure of sailing as a sport is largely determined by the fact that it is an Olympic event. Investment, training and elite athlete programs are geared towards the pursuit of gold medals in an almost arbitrary range of dinghy classes. For most non-Olympic disciplines, it’s harder to identify new talent and develop the future elite sailors (single handed offshore racing being an exception).

With the announcement of a new era in the America’s Cup, where nationality rules may be introduced for crew, development of non-olympic sailors is starting to be lo0ked at. In the UK, the British Keelboat Academy has been relaunched with an eye to creating the America’s Cup and Volvo Ocean Race competitors of the future, but elsewhere, non-Olympic sailing has been identified by governments as a way of not just developing talent, but national pride.

This week, Malaysia announced a development plan to help develop the nation’s sailing fraternity and raise its international potential on the professional yacht racing circuit. The new initiative, spearheaded by Malaysia’s Youth and Sports Minister Dato’ Ahmad Shabery Cheek, is aimed at accelerating the progress of local athletes in the sailing arena and propelling them towards international sailing events. These prestigious global yacht racing events include the ISAF World Match Racing Tour (WMRT), the Volvo Ocean Race and the America’s Cup as “Special Events” in the sport as sanctioned by ISAF (International Sailing Federation).

The athletes enrolled on the programme will have access to the world’s top racing events that will also provide the most intense test of a sailor’s character.

This new professional sailing programme for Malaysia is of particular importance for talented sailors looking to move into more professional and challenging yacht racing disciplines. Currently, the country supports a healthy following of sailors in the Optimist, Laser and 470 dinghy classes. Dinghy sailors are regular competitors with support of the Malaysian Yachting Association in the SEA Games, Asian Games and the Olympic Games.

Malaysia has identified the big void of talent when it comes to racing in keel boats and on the professional world circuits. Dato’ Shabery agrees that this situation is due to the lack of a planned development route that sailors could follow and move up to the professional global circuit.

He said:

The Sports Industry Division of the Malaysian Youth and Sports Ministry is to be commended for bringing forth the idea that a dynamic programme is needed, where amateur sailors will receive high level coaching. Currently Malaysia is focusing on the medal sports but I would like to one day, see our athletes taking part in professional sailing events such as the ISAF World Match Racing Tour and possibly the America’s Cup”.

Dato’ Shabery informed the media at a press conference that the programme will involve an initial four-year plan which will see the participation of 10 athletes. This programme will run closely with the organisers of the Monsoon Cup, the final event of the WMRT.

“We will work closely with the organisers of the Monsoon Cup as they have the expertise to train and provide opportunities to our sailors. They are delighted to support the programme as it fits in nicely with their own development work which they have been carrying out for the past several years.”

The International Council of Yacht Clubs, a group of yacht club operators across the world, congregated at the Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club, Perth, Western Australia, to hold their 5th Commodores Forum to meet and share their experience and views.

Peter Gilmour, Acting President of the World Match Racing Tour was invited to present what the Tour has learnt and specifically the Monsoon Cup, Malaysia in running commercial events. The main objective of the forum was to discuss how different yacht clubs manage their services and what they can do better.

Peter strongly endorsed the role that yacht clubs play in events, however he contemplated that clubs looking to host commercial sailing events without wanting to take the risk of affecting their core business can set up a separate entity to do so. He said that most yacht clubs were not originally established by their members to organise commercial events.

“However, they can establish a separate entity with a Board of Directors as event promoters capable of taking on risk, establishing a balance sheet, seeking commercial partners and making contracts for service. Some of the biggest yacht clubs in the world have been successful in organising such events with an entity set up alongside their usual operations.”

He talked about the role of yacht clubs in commercial sailing events where he drew a distinction between what is considered “commercial” and what is not – this is dependent on the amount of risk the yacht clubs are willing to take.

For instance, if a yacht club’s turnover is say USD5 million per annum, then the board of management and club members are most likely going to risk say 10 percent on a sailing event and this then limits the size and scope of the event. In defining commercial sailing events he indicated a budget of USD 500,000 and above was the benchmark.

Using the Monsoon Cup as an example, Gilmour highlighted that an important component of world-class events is drawing a significant crowd to justify the importance of televising the event and went into a more detailed explanation of the key drivers behind the Monsoon Cup in Malaysia. Gilmour elaborated on the growth in both domestic and international tourism and the important role sports tourism is now playing in society as well as the critical part that government play in assisting commercial events.

At the forum attended by key personnel from yacht clubs all over the world, Gilmour reiterated the important role the top sailors have in representing themselves and being the brand ambassadors for the event that is being hosted.

“With significant sailors at these events the importance of presenting them to the public as celebrities is something that yacht clubs really need to embrace and pay careful attention to. The interest of the yacht club community to seek significant expansion into various different commercial areas is amazing! Currently, there is tremendous interest from all over the world on running commercial sailing events and how to run such businesses better. I was really impressed with the knowledge, capability and desire to improve in a range of areas.”

This is the fifth year the forum has been held and it is something that the International Council of Yacht Clubs has done to get participants up to speed and compare notes with their peers in the industry.

“There is still much more that can be done and I am excited to see so many yacht clubs considering how they can learn from each other and outside events.”

The 6th Commodores Forum for the ICOYC will be held at the Seattle yacht Club in September 2011.

World Match Racing Tour Finale, live from Malaysia.

Get World Match Racing Tour business news updates, including 2011 calendar dates, sponsorship and venue deals, team announcements and more.

Ever since it was announced that the World Match Racing Tour was under new ownership in September, many have been wondering what the future holds for the championship.

Most have welcomed the change of ownership, with a belief that the Tour will benefit from increased investment. Certainly if the prize pool for the 2009 Monsoon Cup is anything to go by, the World Match Racing Tour may be able to deliver a truly professional global sailing series.

The Monsoon Cup, which starts later this week in Malaysia, is offering total prize money of MYR1.57m (US$ 454,000). The winner pockets MYR 360,000 (US$104,000) while the last team (12th place) receives MYR 50,000 (US$14,400).

Monsoon Cup Race Advisor, Datuk Peter Gilmour said,

‘This makes the regatta the biggest prize pool available throughout all sailing events in 2009. Importantly, the Monsoon Cup marks the final stage of the World Match Racing Tour (WMRT) where the ISAF World Champion will be crowned.’

Gilmour noted that the increase in prize money is attributed to the increased sponsorship commitments from the key sponsors and the State Government of Terengganu in providing such outstanding facilities and intra-government support that takes the event to a new level.

While there are many pretenders to the overused and largely misleading phrase, ‘the F1 of sailing’, the World Match Racing Tour is probably the only sailing event that comes close. It is truly global, visiting more diverse markets than any other event on an annual basis. It features some of the worlds best professional sailors and confers upon the winner the genuine title of World Champion.

Leaving aside the fact that it is effectively a ‘one-make’ championship, the World Match Racing Tour has the potential to deliver a truly recognisable World Championship outside of the Olympic classes.

The Monsoon Cup is owned and organised by the same team that has now acquired the Tour commercial rights. If other events on the Tour are to be run in the same manner, with the same prize money, then it will attract attention from sailors, sponsors and media alike.

Like many sailing platforms, The Monsoon Cup is backed by Government tourism and development budgets. It is project of the Malaysian Ministry of Youth and Sports and it is proudly hosted by the State of Terengganu and is supported by key sponsors Richard Mille, TM, Cartrade Group (CTG), Astro, Firefly Airline, and Ri-Yaz Heritage Marina Resort & Spa.

Like many, we are eager to learn more about the plans for the WMRT 2010 and beyond.

The World Match Racing Tour has been a closely fought series this year. Unlike the F1 World Championship, which has been decided with one race to go, the 2009 World Match Racing title could go down to the last race of the last event.

With bonus points on offer at the Monsoon Cup, 5 skippers have a mathamatical chance of taking out the title including Adam Minoprio, Torvar Mirsky, Mathieu Richard, Peter Gilmour and Ben Ainslie.

Founded by the same team that has recently aquired the rights to the World Match Racing Tour, The Monsoon Cup is a fantastic example of using sailing as a platform for entertainment and investment.

The Monsoon Cup has announced via its Facebook page that Permanis Sdn Bhd, one of the largest beverage manufacturers in Malaysia will be an event sponsor with its isotonic drink – Revive Isotonic.

Ms Hemalatha Ragavan, Marketing Manager of Permanis Sdn Bhd said:

“This new generation isotonic drink will efficiently re-hydrate and replenish our body fluids so that it helps to revive and sustain the drive in performing our daily activities with as much vigour and verve,”

Monsoon Cup Race Advisor, Dato’ Peter Gilmour welcomed Permanis’ sponsorship, noting that Revive Isotonic was the first isotonic drink to be associated with the Monsoon Cup and reflected its commitment to the development of the sporting industry.

“This is definitely a boost for us and we are sure Revive Isotonic will do a great job of ensuring everyone is refreshed for the race. I am happy with Permanis’s sponsorship as it goes beyond the usual advertising and we see it as a wonderful partnership to make the Monsoon Cup a great experience for all.”

The Monsoon Cup reports on its Facebook page that diversified Malaysian conglomerate Cartrade Group is set to increase it’s support level for the Monsoon Cup this year, after sponsoring more than RM8 million worth of cars previously.

The four-year sponsorship deal signed in 2008 will see the company continue to provide all on the ground transportation solutions and logistical management in Pulau Duyong, Kuala Terengganu during the Monsoon Cup, to be held 1- 6 of December 2009.

The group is already well associated with sponsorship of many prestigious sporting events and will also be sponsors of the upcoming MotoGP at Sepang Circuit.

Dato’ Ilyas Mohamed Executive Chairman of Cartrade Group said the Monsoon Cup is however the most interesting and exciting event to sponsor.

“The Monsoon Cup is unique as it is our first sponsorship of an event on water. Providing logistical solutions to the event during the monsoon season in Terengganu in itself is a complicated process. Last year for example we experienced flooding of up to a metre in some areas. It makes for some interesting challenges.

This year that is expected to increase that to up to 60 vehicles that will be branded as “MonsoonWagen”.

Meanwhile, Monsoon Cup Race Advisor Dato’ Peter Gilmour commended the Cartrade Group for it’s continued support of events such as the Monsoon Cup which he said shows a commitment to the development of the sporting industry amongst others.

“Cartrade Group’s sponsorship goes beyond the traditional methods of advertising, it is engaging and we appreciate the group’s ability to think in broader terms, with a complete understanding of the needs of the event. It allows for a more impactful partnership.”

For the Cartrade Group that includes a unique opportunity to raise awareness of the brand and it’s association with an exclusive lifestyle sport. This also benefits its clientele who are invited to attend the event and enjoy the benefit of sponsorship packages.

Dato’ Ilyas said:

“The event held during Monsoon season in Terengganu allows us an opportunity to provide our customers with a lifestyle experience of international sport. We invite our customers to join us in Terengganu for the event,”

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Peter Gimour is also the Chairman of the World Yacht Racing Forum in 2009. This information could win you a free delegate pass to the event in December in Monaco. Enter our competition to win.

The finale of the World Match Racing Tour, the Monsoon Cup, gets underway in Malaysia on the 3rd of December. Apart from deciding the championship, this event uses some of the latest technology to get the message around the world.

Apart from the Americas Cup, the Monsoon Cup is the only yachting event to utilise Virtual Eye; a real time, 3D sports graphics package for television and the big screen.

During the races, the technology tracks the boats live, by installing custom-built trackers in each yacht.

Virtual Eye helps the ‘unskilled eye’ to see the position of the yachts during races to allow spectators to keep track of the action, aided by computer graphic overlays.

Supporting features such as grid lines showing the yacht’s position, and circles indicating changes in speed, help viewers to understand the subtleties of match racing.

Like a video game, there are an endless range of camera angles, with fast-forward and rewind functions available for post race analysis.

For more information on the Monsoon Cup, visit: http://www.monsooncup.com.my/