A
Rolex Cup for the next Challenger Series ? (09/22/03)
(source
: la
Tribune de Genève)
"To win the America's Cup first win the
Louis Vuitton Cup" became the rallying cry when challenging
syndicates won the America's Cup in 1983 (the first
year of the Louis Vuitton Cup).
Continuing this involvement, Louis Vuitton, a division
of LVMH Group, wants to return for the seventh time
as co-producers of the Challenger Selection Series.
And Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH, gives full authority
to Yves Carcelle and Bruno Troublé to convince AC
Management.
But unfortunately things are not so simple and rumors
coming from Geneva that Rolex could be the next Challenger
Selection Series partner.
(The following quotes are excerpts from an interview
with Swiss biotech billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli
posted on the Alinghi website).
Q: With the organization split into two organizations,
AC Management managed by Michel Bonnefous, and Alinghi
managed by Russell Coutts, what is your role?
EB: My role and priority is to manage Serono SA Intl.
The only way to manage many ventures is to delegate
and to become the defender of the America's Cup we
faced two responsibilities - the first to organize
the event and the second to successfully defend the
Cup. I delegated those responsibilities to Russell
and Michel.
Q: What is the near-term priority for AC Management?
EB: The priority and deadline that ACM is working
towards is 15 December when we decide on the one location
out of the four remaining. We have on paper all the
commitments and getting those signed will take the
time from now until December. The second priority
is to set a schedule for some of the venues to prepare
for the America's Cup.
Q: What do you plan to do to make the next America's
Cup more successful?
EB: Focus on two important things - the conditions
of the next venue and how close the race course will
be from a city. In San Francisco the tides are not
perfect but at least we are close to a big city and
the turn out on the water here is fantastic. Making
sure we can sail everyday, making sure we are in a
place that is populated with people who are enthusiastic
about sailing are extremely important for the success
of the next Cup.
Q: What can you do to attract the general public
in a country like the US where sailing is not high
on the popularity list?
EB: I think a venue like San Francisco is very good
to promote the sport. We'll continue to bring the
racing to the United States as it's obviously a very
important market for our sponsors and also a very
important market in terms of sports. Any successful
sport has a very strong foothold in America so we
will try to balance our presence between Europe and
the US.
ACM
denies Brian Willis' appointment (09/17/03) (source
: AC
Management)
In June, it was announced that Bryan Willis of
Great Britian will be the first ever AC "Regatta Director."
In a e-mail I received today from AC Management, it
has been indicated to me that the information is,
and will remain, false.
Alinghi and Oracle have promised via the Protocol
that all rules and regulations governing the next
Cup will be published by December 15, 2003.
A
new era of America’s Cup racing (09/14/03) (source
: Forbes)
For most of its history, the America's Cup has
been anything but a profit center. Snooty traditionalists
banned most forms of advertising until 1988.
Since then a variety of sponsors have poured millions
of dollars into the event only to walk away, frustrated
by disorganization, erratic television coverage and
the constant threat that the boat they back won't
even survive.
This time it will be different. As a sponsorship vehicle,
Cup racing already has big advantages over many sports:
Companies can use the boats as floating billboards--technology
and teamwork are the main messages--but they can also
take customers and employees out for spins.
The prestige and drama of the event make for good
television, especially with new digital aids that
help viewers understand what the sailors are doing.
When the next Cup match is held, races will be no
more than two hours long, the better to appeal to
attention-challenged television viewers. The venue
will be a European city chosen for steady winds so
TV coverage can be promoted without fear of canceled
races. On shore, tourists will be drawn to a yachting
center styled after an Olympic Village, with sponsors
and the host government paying most of the bills.
Most important, all the details, from television contracts
to license fees for America's Cup logo T shirts, will
be handled by AC Management, a company Bertarelli
formed to manage the Cup.
The man overseeing this sea change is Michel Bonnefous,
a school chum of Bertarelli's who still climbs mountains
with the billionaire and skims across Lake Geneva
on his powerful 12-meter catamaran.
Bertarelli assigned Bonnefous to study a complete
overhaul of the America's Cup last year--long before
anybody knew Team Alinghi would emerge as the winner.
Bertarelli has also rammed through sweeping rules
changes designed to make it easier for teams to buy
boats, recruit crews and sell sponsorships to finance
campaigns that can cost $100 million or more.
"There have been enough changes to produce massive,
positive results," says Russell Coutts. "The returns
are getting better for sponsors."
The key difference this time is an unprecedented agreement
between Bertarelli, chief executive of Serono S.A.,
the Geneva-based biotechnology company, and fellow
billionaire Larry Ellison, whose Team Oracle is the
so-called Challenger of Record.
Since either man can write a check for the $100 million
or so it can take to float an America's Cup campaign,
neither of them has to run the event to fund their
own program.
The result, ironically, will be more money for everybody.
With AC Management handling the sale of combined TV
rights this time--and the live television audience
much bigger than in remote New Zealand--the price
could double the $10 million the race has garnered
in the past. Promoting the event will be easier with
shorter races and fewer weather delays.
And by moving the event to Europe and playing host
cities off against one another, Bertarelli and Bonnefous
have virtually guaranteed that the syndicates will
have fancier digs for entertaining sponsors and more
chances to raise money for their campaigns.
"New Zealand is a wonderful place, but it's 4 million
people and it's 12 hours away from any major market,"
says Nicholas Masson, the former head of global marketing
and sales at RJ Reynolds International who is marketing
Team Alinghi to sponsors. "Now 320 million people
will be within a two-and-a-half-hour flight. It's
a massive opportunity."
Organizers plan to stoke audience and sponsor interest
with a series of races in the off-years, starting
in September 2004.
Bertarelli and Ellison also agreed to liberalize the
rules to make it easier for challengers to get into
the game. They threw out restrictions on crew-member
nationalities and a rule that prohibited campaigns
from selling engineering and performance data along
with their old hulls. All this reduces the advantage
Ellison and Bertarelli have over the challengers,
but the billionaires want to encourage their friends
to come out and play.
Sponsors so far seem happy with the changes. Alinghi
is negotiating to renew its sponsorship agreements,
which expire in December, including the one with UBS,
estimated to be in the tens of millions of dollars.
BMW appears committed to staying with Oracle, which
projects the same sort of high-tech, high-competitiveness
image of the affluent males who buy its cars.
Great
Britain's Bryan Willis joins AC Management (06/09/03)
(source
: Sailing
Anarchy)
Bryan Willis of Great Britian has been hired
by ACM (America's Cup Management -- the newly created,
independent organizing authority for the next America's
Cup) as the first ever AC "Regatta Director."
Willis will be in charge of all aspects of the racing,
drafting of the rules, overseeing the umpires, race
committee, and measurers, and generally ensuring that
the entire event (both the challenger series and AC
match) is fair and even-handed.
In theory this will eliminate much of the "home court
advantage" that past defenders have enjoyed and, to
varying degrees, exploited.
Willis is not new to the Cup scene. He was chairman
of the jury for the last two Cups, and received generally
high marks in that role. His appointment required
the agreement of both Alinghi and Oracle as Challenger
of Record.
ACM will announce Willis's appointment this coming
Thursday when they will also announce the four venue
finalists. (Lisbon and Palma are widely expected to
be among the finalists; with two of Marseille, Naples
and Sardinia rounding out the foursome.)
Willis is expected to begin working on the next Cup
almost immediately. He has a big job ahead of him,
as Alinghi and Oracle have promised via the Protocol
that all rules and regulations governing the next
Cup will be published by December 15, 2003.
