Not long after the invention of the automobile, automobile racing emerged. The people building the cars could not resist the temptation to race them. The same goes for motorcycles, bicycles, horses (except for the inventing part), even sailboats. People came to watch the spectacle and when TV came along the audience got even bigger. Except for sailing. Even sailors didn’t like watching other people sailing.
Ask a sailboat racer how they got into the sport and the stories pour out: “ I loved the freedom on the water”, “my parents were into it”, “my parents weren’t into it”, “I was too small for other sports”… No one says: “I wanted to be famous on TV”.
Then came the 2013 Americas Cup in San Francisco and we watched, on TV, as 75 foot boats rose up out of the water on foils. Every sailor said to their non-sailor friends: “You have got to see this!”
One sailor from New Zealand, Russell Coutts said: “Now we can put sailboat racing on TV” Coutts already had been working closely with Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, on Americas Cup campaigns. And by the end of the 2017 Americas Cup in Bermuda, Russell and Larry had a plan to launch SailGP with the aim of making the first commercially viable professional sailing league, and put it on TV.
Unlike the emergent nature of every other type of racing (people had cars and couldn’t help but race them), SailGP must create every part of this new universe. SailGP builds, owns, and maintains the boats, designs the racing format, selects the venues, puts together each event, and runs the races. It is an exhausting list, but there is still more. The SailGP team also must manage the process for officials and judges, recruit and pay the athletes, sign up the sponsors, and produce the TV broadcasts (with augmented reality graphics and live commentators). If just reading this list is making you queasy, there is even more. SailGP has also created a pathway for women sailors, a feeder program for youth sailors, an environmental challenge, and a docuseries.
Because of the tremendous efforts of about 200 people working at SailGP, the sailing has been spectacular to watch. But there is an equally interesting race off the water too. Russell is running the show as CEO, and Larry is writing the checks. And there have been a lot of checks. They have never disclosed the running total, but it must be in the hundreds of millions. Next weekend marks the end of the 3rd season. Larry has said he will pay through the 5th season. After that SailGP must stand on its own two legs. The race is on.
In addition to producing the 14 events of season four, there are some very pressing items on Russel’s to do list:
Sell the teams: So far Great Britain and Canada have bought their teams from SailGP. The terms of these transactions have not been published, but presumably, some money traded hands and future costs will be paid by the team owners. There is a new team for next season that will be owned by the fans from the start. It’s unclear how that is going to work, but let’s call it also independently owned. So 3 down, 7 to go.
Get a US TV deal: Some of the races have been shown on CBS in the US. But the execution has been weak. At 14 minutes, the races should fit easily between commercials. But CBS often cuts more commercials into the middle of the races, and does so without any coordination with the commentators. In season 4, there will be 3 events in the US and one in Canada. A good US TV distribution deal a high priority.
Develop a full roster of sponsors: Rolex has signed a 10 year deal with the league. Emirates Airlines has signed a three year deal with Team GBR. There are other sponsors with undisclosed terms including Oracle, the Near Foundation, T-Mobile, Algorand, Cognizant, Mubadala, ITM, and KPMG. More sponsors bring in money but also convey confidence in the endeavor. Many many more sponsors of all sizes need to be brought in.
Get out front on the calendar: 2024 is going to be a big year in sailboat racing. The Olympics, which has expanded its foiling events from 1 to 5, is on in Marseille. And the Americas Cup, which brought foiling to the mainstream, is on in Barcelona. Many of the SailGP sailors will be competing in one or sometimes both of these other events. SailGP has been building up the team rosters to increase its chances of being able to carry on as the bigger names in sailing have to increasingly split their time. But 1, 2, and 3 on this list depend heavily on managing the calendar and the communication about the calendar is critical.
Getting this done before the clock runs out seems unlikely at this juncture. However, one or two big developments could change things very quickly in either direction. And of course, Larry Ellison may extend the deadline.
I am headed down to San Francisco next week to see my first SailGP event in person. So this will not be my last post about SailGP. (the races will be live on the SailGP YouTube channel at 2:30 Saturday and Sunday, May 6 and 7).
Links and Resources
SailGP Website: https://sailgp.com/
SailGP Analytics Website: https://sailgpinsights.com/schedule
SailGP YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SailGP/streams
My other posts on this subject:
SailGP: Sailboat Racing Made for TV
SailGP Got Lucky and Needs a Better Playbook
Sporting Events + TV Series = Good for Everyone
Building and Audience: Deep v Wide
Wind Power + Women Power (Part 1)
Wind Power + Women Power (Part 2)
Wind Power + Women Power (Part 3)
Wind Power + Women Power (Part 4)
How the America's Cup Brought us Sailing on TV
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