Americas cup

Originally posted by Owenfackrell Originally posted by blueboy Originally posted by fleaberto It was great coverage I thought and a decent show put together by BT Sport.  It is not put together by BT Sport. They just broadcast it. they do put together their own show and even had a reporter in Bermuda. I had the privilege of watching them put together the show on the Saturday from with in the studio and could see both the feed from ACEA and their own reporter.

Odd as I've seen sections of their coverage and it looked identical to the ACEA production to me, with the same commentators. Who was their reporter?

Originally posted by Richard Gladwell How did we sink so deep, so quickly, in the AC quicksand?

But isn't that the way it always was? There was a brief aberration for a few years in which there was a degree of media popularity, but otherwise it was always complete silence for three years, and then maybe a 3 minute item on the TV news. Isn't that the natural level of coverage for a rich man's event involving people from only a few random nations? Naturally wouldn't the ACC have a lot less world coverage than Olympic sailing?

Edited by JimC - 29 Oct 15 at 12:29pm

Originally posted by Richard Gladwell How did we sink so deep, so quickly, in the AC quicksand? RG

Some might think that it's part of some Larry led plot to ensure that there's no credible entry from NZ in the first place.
Finals in Bermuda - so that NZ has to wake up at stupid o'clock to even think about watching, thereby cutting down on TV interest & revenue, leading the govt to think: "Where's our return on our (huge) investment?" - so give less funding, handicapping a previously competitive competitor.

That's one lot out of the way.....

Wasn't aware that they were territory blocking on the App when they had sold TV rights albeit to a subscription only channel. They get away with it because when they make announcements as to the number of TV channels etc, most assume they are free to air, when it is becoming apparent that very few if any are free to air.

There is no doubt that when the Cup is held in a major world sailing centre (sorry, I don't call Bermuda a major world sailing centre) that it does lift the profile of the sport, and does pull young sailors into it.

The reason being that they see the other side of the America's Cup - big boats going out training each day - stories about boats sailing on TV news a couple of times a week in the build up. They can see the boats and activity at the bases, and so on.

When the event is in another location, they mostly get fed the dark side of the America's Cup until the live coverage starts, then it is cool again. The national fervor also kicks in and sailing becomes like any other major sport with international competition.

AC doesn't lead the sport, but it is one of its shop windows - like the Olympics (but unfortunately sailing gets swamped with the coverage of other sports), Like the Volvo Ocean Race which again has big impact in a stopover and for about a week before and a month afterwards. Then you might get some lift off world championships and the like.

The "new" AC has huge potential and the general media does "get" the sport and concept because it looks fast, awesome and dangerous. But the AC is appallingly marketed and you would really have to try to think of how to do a worse job than is being done at present. In fact I couldn't think of one thing they could do worse, except maybe have the racing at night.

I don't really want to talk about Auckland and New Zealand, but it does demonstrate a couple of things.

In Auckland you have a lot of clubs in an area that is good for sailing, but that creates the issues of them working alone, rather than together. And each has a good historical reasons for being established and being where they are - which is that in the 1950's and earlier people didn't really have the ability to drive boats to the club with trailers, and the English model was the norm - where you had a club and a boatpark and people kept their boats at the club and walked or cycled to the club, stayed there for most of the day and went sailing. That model will come back in Auckland because people now just do not have the space at home to store boats.

Outside Auckland you have a different model - where there is one club per town (Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin being halfway houses), everyone sails at the one club and there are really none of the Auckland issues. Oddly enough most of the top sailors don't come from Auckland but from outside - Tauranga has probably produced more top sailors of late than any other centre. More than half the crew from NZL-32 came from outside Auckland, originally.

I don't think the numbers are really changing that much, everyone has their view of the glory days, some fleets diminish others grow. Any big ticket sports have the same issues as sailing - rowing for instance.

It is pretty cheap to buy a pairs of boots and kick a ball around - that is why the numbers are so high in those sports.

England is, in my view, the best country for sailing because of its huge diversity of environments. The pond sailing is a huge strength both in the ease to go sailing and the tactical sailing that it develops, then at the other end you have places like Hayling and Cowes.

England is the only place really where people leave the office, get on a train, go to Cowes or where ever, do quite a challenging offshore race on the Friday night or Saturday and then back onto the train and home.

The offshore sailing in UK is quite outstanding as every race is like a big dinghy race - there is a always a corner coming up or a challenge. Plus they all seem to have a great attitude and bonhomie - aided of course by the abundance of handy watering holes - to get warm and have a quiet drink.

Plus UK has a yachting industry like no other - and they have developed the clothing to offset their dreadful weather.

And you have the history, which the natives never seem to appreciate as much as those who don't have it.

RG