How the America’s Cup Brought us Sailing on TV
"These are sights and sounds that nobody in sailing ever dreamt we would see." - Ken Reed
Forty years ago, we watched Dennis Conner lose the Americas Cup on TV. Even avid sailors thought of it as a spectacle, and never imagined sailboat racing would one day find its place among other sports on TV. In 1983, sailboat races had never been live on TV before. But when the match progressed to one final winner take all race, and the longest winning streak in the history of sports was in jeopardy, the local TV station in Providence Rhode Island (WJAR10), scrambled and got one camera onto a blimp and broadcast the race live. ESPN, who along with every other major network had previously turned down the broadcast rights, did a last-minute deal with WJAR and carried the final race live.
Nine years later, at the 1992 America’s Cup in San Diego, the New Zealand based company, Virtual Eye, introduced new GPS enabled technology that sucked up data streams transmitted live from the boats and created a virtual representation of the racing on screen. The implementation was rough in 1992, but thankfully GPS, cellular data, and internet technology all advanced rapidly and by the 2000 America’s Cup in New Zealand, we could watch the boats blink across the screen live over the internet. It was an awesome advance, but only interesting to people already interested in sailboat racing.
Then in 2013, Oracle Team USA pulled off the biggest comeback in the history of history, live on TV in San Francisco Bay in 72 foot boats that somehow flew above the water on foils. Team New Zealand, who had pioneered the foiling part of the story had jumped out to an 8-1 lead, and Team USA, who was having to catch up while the regatta was ongoing, was one race from defeat. But Team USA did advance in technology and skills and on the scoreboard, and ultimately won race 19 to take the victory 9-8.
The races were not all on broadcast television, but when they were they drew over 1 million viewers in the US. New Zealand also had a million viewers (out of a population of 5 million!). In addition to the comeback storyline, the production benefited from significant technical advances with live video and audio streamed from the boats and augmented reality enhancements to the on the course video from boats and helicopters. Ken Reed captured the moment when he said during the commentary “These are sights and sounds that nobody in sailing ever dreamt we would see.”
In the last decade, the boats have gotten even more exotic, the video and augmented reality technology has advanced further, and viewers have shown no end to their appetite for well-produced TV. SailGP, which grew out of the 2017 America’s Cup in Bermuda, now has over 1.6 million viewers in the US. The next America’s Cup, to be held in Barcelona in 2024, will be viewed by sports enthusiasts around the world.
Links and Resources
More about WJAR 10
https://turnto10.com/archive/tv-coverage-of-americas-cup-has-changed-since-83
Netflix Documentary about the 1983 Americas Cup
https://www.netflix.com/title/81026435
NYTimes Article about How Bad Sailing Coverage was in 1983
https://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/27/sports/a-faulty-tack-on-covering-the-races-tv-sports.html
More about Virtual Eye
https://virtualeye.tv/the-news/latest-news
More about Virtual Eye and the America’s Cup
https://www.sail-world.com/news/233409/170-years-of-the-Americas-Cup-by-Virtual-Eye
Race 19 of the 2013 America’s Cup in San Francisco
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I think it depends on how the networks handle it. If you watch SailGP on CBS, they put commercials in the race...when the race only lasts 14 mins. There is 10 mins between races...just begging for ads. Somebody had the rights for AC 34 race 19 which prevented it from being on YouTube until 2 years ago. We could watch all 18 races, but not the deciding race. These deals need to be managed better to grow viewership in the US.
For sure the AC event has come a very long way since the last of the 12m racing. Hard to believe it's already been ten years since the amazing comeback in SF. I was there to watch. It was an unbelievable accomplishment.
Yet still less than 2m viewership surprises me.
I'm curious Jay, your thoughts on what the sport and event might do, to continue to grow US interest & viewership?