Hi,

I hope Mark Jardine is OK with me putting this up!

I am very concerned that GBR Challenge is on the verge of pulling out of the next Americas Cup.

The GBR programme has been running since 2000, if the team is disbanded then we will lose all of this progress and more in the years to come.In 2003 GBR was the first British entry for 15 years.

Britain has produced some fantastic sailing talent as shown by being the top nation at successive Olympic Games. Our development programme run by the RYA is second to none.

If GBR Challenge is not representing us at the 'World Cup' of short course racing I for one, think it will be shameful.

I feel that the Government should help out with some of the funding, if you agree I have set up an easy way to get your MP to debate this in Parliament.

If Yachts and Yachting want to run that article they can with my thanks and no charge!

Coiler

I agree with Phil - it's a very valid cause but Goverment funding would be inappropriate.

It's will be a awful shame if Corporate UK is so too short sighted to see the value in backing a Challenge and keeping at least some of the momentum.

ok

you are entitled to your views but the Government (and the National Lottery) does use funds to back sport:

Olympic Bid,RYA, etc etc

If the Government backed the bid, not all of it but some of it, it would have the following effect.

1. It would allow GBR Challenge to continue and have a very strong marketing position.

2. Private companies who want to scratch the Gov. back can see that this is a way to do so.

coiler

Think about how this would play in the mainstream media. Mrs Jones has been waiting 6 months for her hip replacement. On the other hand, the government is funding a few yotties to sail big boats in sunny places.

It's not going to happen, is it? And rightly so.

I do not agree with Government funding or lottery funding which should be for good causes or amatuer teams.

The Americas Cup is very professional in its approach and appearance. You could say it is in line with football. There would be massive uproar if Man Utd got lottery funding and I think it is the same with the America's Cup.

It has been said elswhere that this is a game for Billionaires - we just need to find one.

yacht racing in the national press, now that would be a novelty!

one of the reasons that we have been the top nation in the last two Olympics is the lottery funding.

and lets be honest our olympic sailors are not exactly amateurs and they aspire to be in the AC ask Ben Ainslie or Ian Percy.

I agree that funds should be made availiable for 'grass roots' sailing but it is pointless if you can't grow into a tree.

coiler

I'd say the opposite. I support government and lottery funding for "sport for all", in particular to help people who don't come from sailing families to enter the sport. But professionals should stand on their own feet. If Ben Ainslie wants to compete in the AC, good luck to him, but I really don't see why the taxpayer should foot the bill. Unfortunately if the government paid for everyone's dream lifestyle, there would be nobody left working to actually pay for it. I'm not opposed to lottery funding for Olympic campaigns but the cost of those is a minute fraction of the budget of an AC campaign.

Here Here Stefan

Exactly how many Olympic campaigns could you subsidise for the cost of one AC Team?

Work that out and you will see why the AC will never get Lottery Funding.(and must not get it)

You'd be suprised how much a four year olympic campaign works out at! Especially for Yngling and Star sailors. The money supplied by the lottery is still only a fraction of that cost and the Olympic Sailors still need to rely on the Corporate sponsors.

The AC will always be cheque book sailing - anyone spoken to Mr Branson recently?

Having just had a look at the rich list 2004 for the uk it seems that there are now 29 billionaires in Britain, equal to one for every two million people, which is a greater concentration than America, which has one dollar billionaire to every 3.6 million people.

Surely, some of these people have an interest in sailing?

I suggest gbr challange write a very polite letter to mr abramovich (£7.2 bn), asking if he has any spare change lying about.

If you were very wealthy and interested in sailing would you:

1. Fund an AC campaign where the only position on the boat you could hope for is 17th man or:

2. Be owner-helm of a Z86 at a fraction of the cost. An AC campaign isn't "small change" even to a billionaire.

I know which I'd go for.

But look at ernesto berterelli, did he not actively contribute to the alighi team success at the last AC.

i'm pretty sure that most of the billionaires would choose to keep completely away from the AC as it gives relatively little money back but what i'm is saying that it would a good way to get funds for GBR challange and a better set up for the team rather than getting a sponsorship deal with a company with more commercial interest than the actual sailing.

Are we not talking about what will motivate a billionaire to throw around his cash in tens of millions?

So what motivates them - it has either got to be a love of the sport or publicity.

Look at Mr Branson's high profile stunts and for that matter Steve Fossett's in his balloon. These are high profile, high publicity events - you can hardly say that about the Americas Cup.

Excuse the pun - but football is a different ball game altogether!!

Look at the publicity football gets - that is why it gets the money.

The America's Cup is boring unless you are actually taking part. Who wants to watch 2 boats sailing up and down at less than 20mph, sometimes miles apart, sometimes not racing because of too much/little wind etc?

It is exciting for the Ainslies / Percys of this world as they are taking part. 

well it does get prime time tv

and alot of companys are getting bored of formula one

Sorry hurricane are you saying the AC gets prime time TV - if so where, I have not seen it.

Come to think of it I have not seen any sailing on prime time TV. We all know how much fun sailing is on the water but as a spectator sport it will never rate highly.

I reckon the tide ride would have made a good half hour on grandstand the following saturday.  It wasn't too windy but there was plenty of action!!  I'm pretty sure it could have been edited and filmed to make it more than watchable to the general public!!

The last GBR Challenge made national news and at least 2 or 3 1/2 hour slots on Grandstand only the Olympics and Ellen gets more. To Joe Public it the most understandable form of our sport (as a sport and not a human interest story) especially when edited Rally style, i.e. results and spectacular highlights.

It would be very interesting to look into the finances of the Billionaire backed syndicates to see how much actually ended up coming out of the Billionaires pocket – I’ve got a sneaky suspicion that once you take all the sponsorship, merchandising, advertising, corporate hospitality benefits e.t.c. into to account they won’t be seriously out of pocket. (You don’t get to be a Billionaire by throwing money away.)  What the Billionaires do is provide the creditability and underwriting that the corporate world need before it will take a risk.

Hasn't Peter Harrison offered to underwrite 50% of GBR challenge? That means corporate sponsors in the UK only have to take up 50%. And they still do NOT want to take up the challenge. Why?

Slots on Grandstand are hardly prime time TV - who watches that? I suspect the die hard football couch potatoe might watch it. Hardly the type of person that will stay watching sailing.

I watched some of the last America's Cup on TV and found it very boring. Once you have seen 1 tack and 1 gybe you had seen it all.

Very good question - shortsightedness, lack of undersatnding of the sailing market demographics, not enough sailors in corporate marketing departments. I also think that GBR Challenge let the mommentum go at the end of the LV Cup when they should have been out looking for sponsership.

Whilst to sailors AC match racing maybe less exciting than big fleet Olympic races, I still feel that it is the 2nd best PR platform to get Sailing to the general public, the human intrest angle (Ellen, BT challenge) being the best.  

I think some of you are missing the point.

I am suggesting that the Government should put up 'some of the funding' or at the least show they would like to see the team compete at the AC 2007.

this will be seen as a green light to a private sector sponsors.

How do you think some firms obtain Government contracts?

Secondly to say that the AC2007 will not get sufficient media coverage is ridiculous. It will get huge media coverage especially as it is the first time it has been back in Europe since 1851.

Coiler - why do you want to remain annon? Are you a (financially) interested party?

I think you are missing the point here - most people here do not agree with government sponsorship of a commercial organisation. The AC is hardly politically correct is with the obscene amounts of money being spent on it.

It also portrays the sport as very etlitist - it hardly encourages people to join our sport does it. I am saying that any media coverage may actually do our sport more harm than good.

Contender,

I respect your point of view but...

Fair enough if you don't want the gov. to spend money on the GBR AC and that you feel that the AC is not 'politically correct' yes the AC is portrayed as being the elite end of the sport.

but whether you like it or not the AC is going to have huge media coverage and that is how the public will view our sport.

The South Africans will be there with a message and that message is we have an acadamy to get kids off the streets and into yachting and here are some of the people we have produced.

Also all of the great yachting nations will be there except Great Britain, how do you feel about that?

As for my real name it is a bit of a mouthfull; Louay Habib.

Coiler is my nickname, I have absolutely no financial interest in the AC whatsoever but I am passionate about yacht racing and promote it through my web site ( http://www.bangthecorner.com - www.bangthecorner.com )

To save you asking I am an half Iraqi roman catholic grinder (you don't see many of those about do you).

The AC is no more elitist than F1, Football or any other professional team sport.

You have to be rich to own a team and good at what you do to be part of one.

But anyone can crew at thier local club, play football for thier local pub or "steal a car and take part in the estate GP".  

None of which rely on government subsidy.

How do I feel about the probably demise of GBR Challenge? Mildy disappointed, but I don't think the AC presents a positive image for sailing anyway. I am more disappointed there is unlikely to be a British team in the next Volvo.

coolhand

you are right none of them rely on gov. subsidy but politicians are heavily envolved in the teams that do well

agnelli-ferrari,abromovich-chelsea.

Yes it is unlikely that there will be a british team in the Volvo but the last one was Silk Cut in 1998.

our 'national team' is in trouble, let the gov. show their support and encourage the private sector to do the same.

I totally see Coilers point here. The Americas Cup is the oldest Trophy in Sporting History - it is an old boy British tradition that is supported mainly by the upper classes and the elite - not too disimilar to Fox hunting.

If we're not careful, we're going to lose another great English tradition.

I would probably say that most people who visit this forum are club level weekend racers? Not quite the die hard, professional fanatics that would give their right arm to flight out and watch, let alone take part in the AC2007. That is why I think Coilers request may fall on deaf ears (except mine). I was glued to the Olympics at work via broadband and I probably will be for the AC too because I understand the racing and what it means to lead into the start or not etc. etc. It's very hard for people to get excited about a sport if they don't understand it and match racing can be pretty technical.

That's why few women enjoy football - because we don't understand what the offside rule is!!!!

Just a few more points to debate!

error

my last post was in response to stefan not coolhand

coiler

Sorry Coiler I don't see how the government can encourage the private sector to support our"national team".

Corporate sponsors do like supporting UK sailing - you just need to look at the Vendee Globe for a start. Skandia, Hugo Boss, Ecover, Hellomotto all supporting UK teams.

Then there is B&Q supporting Ellen and let's not forget Volvo's widespread support of sailing in the UK.

So you cannot say corporate sponsors do not like sailing. They obviously do not like the America's Cup. Who want's to throw tens of millions of pounds on a team that may go out in round 1 - I wonder how much that would work out per race in the LV cup.

The AC is hardly in the league of F1 - after all everybody drives a car and could see themselves driving a F1 car. The same cannot be said about sailing.

Hello Lucy - this is not a good thing comparing the AC to fox hunting. We are back to being politically incorrect. 

And while I am having a gripe please do not turn a British tradition into an English one - us Scots tend to get offended.

My bad Contender!

AC - British

Fox Hunting - English??

I dunno, may be wrong - but I do feel a bit like we're losing another part of our heritage by not taking part in something we essentially started... perhaps fox hunting was a poor comparison!!!

Not really. The British establishment have never shown a lot of interest in the AC. Thomas Lipton, who funded more campaigns than anyone else, was a grocer. Hardly establishment material. Peter De Savary - a property developer despite the posh name. Peter Harrison - dot.com millionaire. All up-and-coming types, no old money.

Anyway, there has been no British challenge plenty of times before. If you are worried about losing a tradition, you are 16 years late.

16 years is nothing in terms of how long this cup has been floating around!

What's the point in flying a footie team around the world when the last time they won the world cup was nearly 40 years ago! but I guess if you have the backing you can do anything you want no matter how rubbish you are....

I guess we can moan  and debate about it but the sad fact is that it's unlikely we'll be attending the event - despite it being in our back yard. I for one am sad and think coilers attempt to help them - although controversial (!) is a nice thing to do!  

(Obviously Lucy types faster than I do)

The point is that the only way to be successful in the AC is with experience - either gained over time (TNZ) or brought (Alinghi).

We'd finally started building some experience and had a reasonable amount of success at least in terms of lessons learnt when we go and throw it all away again.

I'm not in anyway in favor of Government funding but it’s just sad to see thrown away what we've gained so far. Especially as this time round us mere mortals stood a chance to go and see the spectacle, Valencia can be got to for £100 return in just over 2 hours.

Now then, Have just come into this discussion and read some very interesting points about how sad it is that GBR Challenge will not be in the LVC in 2007, which is true, it is very sad, we do have a tradition in the competition, we were the first people to lose it, we've never won it, and it's never been held in the UK.

The next cup in Valencia, Europe, closer to home but not quite home. Without wanting to come across as a cynic, the America's Cup doesn't represent value for money for Corporate Britain. If Peter was going to underwrite 50% of the Cash then they were still looking for 25 million quid right?

First and foremost the corporate guys would be looking for at least the equivalent of 300% return on exposure and let's face it, unless you win the cup you're not going to get £100 million worth of exposure are you? Without looking can you name Victory Challenges Primary Sponsor? In the UK the sport and the event just physically doesn't generate enough public interest fact. For 25 million, you could be the Kit sponsor for Man United - Now that generates 100 million in exposure in the UK. And GBR Challenge were never going to win the cup

The other thing would be to look at companies with international interests, or those with more focus on the acquisition of trade through their support of an event/team. Imagine, for some companies, the networking prospects in attending an America's Cup could generate enough business to make the cash spent on sponsorship very viable, but 25 million quid viable? For much cheaper you can sposor a boat in a Global yacht race with stopover ports in not 3 or 4 countries, but 7 or 8 countries.

The truth of the matter is that there are much more cost effective things competing for what is effectively a very small sponsorship market, and the GBR Challenge package just wasn't inviting enough. Just think How much Pindar is getting out of their sailing sponsorship, and I bet they're spending a lot less than £25 million.

When some of the biggest supporters of the sport wouldn't stump up the cash, It's time to pull the plug.

hmmm very convincing argument...

you are right if you put your blinkers on:

25*3<100

However the AC Cup has never been about correct maths, it is about history and tradition.It is as high as you can go in match racing.It puts a country on the world stage.

Badger brings a health dose of reality to the proceddings.

Despite anyones desire to see GBR compete on the AC stage the reality is we need either a personal or corporate "sugar daddy".

Which might be good reasons for a patriotic billionaire with a passion for sailing to stump up the cash, but as Badger said, no reason at all for the marketing director of a multinational company to do so. 95% of the public don't know about match racing and wouldn't care even if they did know. Look at how the syndicates that are out there are being funded.

The only grand-prix type sailing that stands a chance of corporate funding is where it is 1. adventure-based so the public can understand it and 2. linked to a strong personality who is willing and able to project themselves to the public, with all that implies. For example, Ellen MacArthur.

25*3 does indeed = 75. Now add the original 25 investment and you get to 100.

Hmmm just joined this one & there are obviously some very strong feelings here.

My gut feeling (may be a naive view but I think there may be others who feel the same):

1. The "Auld Mug" is steeped in history & the thought that one day it might just grace these shores is indeed a wonderful one

2. I agree it's a huge shame that we are not be be represented at the LVC

3. The thought of any government offering even limited funding to such a venture is to my mind outrageous. There are far better ways of spending our very limited resources than to help a few billionaires play with their toys. To my mind, it does nothing to encourage youngsters into the sport, in fact quite the opposite with the likes of Bertarelli & Co flaunting their huge wallets and (even bigger?) ego's.

4. Money is not the issue here. There are enough wealthy businessmen in this country to fund a sucessful campaign, even at the highest level. What is lacking is the desire to do so, presumably engendered by the limited exposure offered by the AC. It is simply not a cost effective exercise. Why should a government be asked to pour our money down the same drain?

5. Maybe it is time for a rethink on the type of boat and the racing format. "Pinnacle of Yachting" it may be, but it has little or no visual appeal. The AC formula has produced a bunch of highly esoteric, ludicrously fragile and obscenely expensive boats that are good for nothing after their very short useful lives. Not only that, but they are hardly the fastest creaft on the planet even after the application of liberal doses of cash!

Lets have some spectacle, and just maybe the sponsorship will follow! Motor racing has the same proble with F1 - hugely expensive, limited to the elite and boring as hell!

Signed, Devil's Advocate.......  

Its interesting that, at present I am reading the book about Claire Francis' Whitbread campaign, and she is currently discussing her sponsorship.  Surely the boat in question can fund herself through sponsorship/ Corperate charter etc etc.  Would it maybe be an idea also for the 'woods to support the trees' and maybe its the duty of the RYS (royal yacht squadron) or the RORC (royal ocean racing club) to realise the importance of her entry in the AC, and its relevance to the history and tradition of the (once round the isle of wight) 'Americas' cup.  Im sure thease powerful and well repected bodies could do some networking with astonishing affect.

Maybe not, what do u think?

Maybe we should bring the AC home and hold it back in good old blighty once more?????