America's Cup Headlines

Possibly only once...


And of course it helps if you've got a location like this too...



Edited by JimC - 19 Jun 17 at 7:04pm

> i wonder what the relationship is to "watching your sport" and "participating in your sport"?

Is there any relationship at all? Evidence seems to suggest there isn't. If so that's really good news, because we club sailors can forget all about TV coverage as regards to growing our sport, and concentrate on other things that do affect it like inviting friends to come sailing.

Something interesting I came across: very occasionally I take a week out to go sailing around the Norfolk broads with some old mates. The boat yard we use (http://www.huntersyard.co.uk/ - gratuitous plug) has glorious old 1930s boats that are almost completely devoid of mod cons like engines and offer a very pure sailing experience. They've had a training background from when they were run by Norfolk County Council for some years, and do a lot of beginners things like short skippered sails and the like, but recently they've taken up offering their boats on AirBNB when they're not actually out on sailing hire. It seems that they are already seeing people graduate from an overnight camping stay to the skippered sails, and have also seen folk graduate from the skippered sails to day hire and week long hire.

Its interesting because its another path into the sport besides the conventional (to us anyway) dinghy route. I think that if I lived more locally taking friends out for the occasional day trip might be a useful thing to do, and then see if some graduate to more competitive sailing. It would also expose them to a less exotic and achievable branch of the sport than the AC billions.

I also wonder if the Airbnb route might be useful for those few clubs that have on site accomodation if its underused. Again expose people to the sport who don't currently have much contact, and let them see its not like TV.

Edited by JimC - 19 Jun 17 at 12:41pm

The interesting thing about TV and sport participation, though, is that there's not much of a link between them. Plenty of sports and physical activities that are in the top 12 most popular participation sports in the UK, like lawn bowls, squash, badminton, exercise and swimming, don't get much airtime. In other countries some of the top-rating sports (US football, rugby league) rank pretty low in participation terms.

Not many kids get into motorsport when the ultimate accolade is going at 372 kmh and getting on TV. Huge numbers of people get into swimming where the ultimate accolade is going at about 5 knots. Huge numbers of people get into cycling where the ultimate accolade is normally won at about 17 kmh.  There is no relationship between going faster and attracting more participants.

Edited by Chris 249 - 18 Jun 17 at 12:15pm

Originally posted by Daniel Holman Have to agree with the last few posts. The boats are technologically very advanced and impressive and all that, but once they are going along in a straight line, speed aside there is nothing going on save grinders being ground. The format of racing is basically dumbed down for the masses.

Yeah right. Well I look forward to you being on the next AC winner then.