Trash Talking the Old America’s Cup is Getting Boring.

Americas Cup, USA, Video | July 12, 2011 by | 4 Comments

Multihulls are great for the America’s Cup. We get it. Sport changes and sports where technology is a driver become almost unrecognisable from one era to another. The new America’s Cup has the potential to be exciting, and spectators will come to see a new kind of sailing, however it is sad to see the ambassadors of the sport, denegrate the tradition that made the America’s Cup what it is.

It’s great to see Jimmy Spithill on ‘everyman’ sports shows like Chronicle Live, but the current PR spin that everything that has come before was “boring” is a little insulting to those who have built the brand that now allows sailors like Spithill and Coutts the opportunities they currently have.

Rather than denigrating past Cups, like the event which took place in Fremantle, which until the most recent re-invention of history was considered one of the most successful ever – ambassadors like Spithill should recognise that though different, the America’s Cup events that came before were fantastic, athletic, technology led competitions. Otherwise, the new America’s Cup has no soul.

If the new format for the 34th America’s Cup has a solid foundation in marketing fundamentals, then it should appeal to the markets that allow Oracle Racing and the America’s Cup Event Authority need to sell sponsorship and television rights against. It’s different and perhaps its better, but trash talking every America’s Cup event that has come before is not good for the America’s Cup brand and is not good for sailing.

Without the ‘boring’ America’s Cup events of the past, where the skill level was so low and the action so tedious that sailors ‘could read a book while competing’, leaders of the sport like Jimmy Spithill would not get invitations to live sports shows.

So let’s think a little more long term shall we. Let’s try to bring a few more people along for the ride and stop sticking two fingers up at the past. The new deal America’s Cup promises to make the sport of sailing a little more accessible to a wider audience. Catamarans with wing-sails will promote speed and technology over match-racing tactical skill, but let’s make the 34th America’s Cup part of the long tradition rather than a new event that just happens to have the same name.

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  • General Public Editor

    You are the one that is a hipocript, by continously slagging all what is good about multihull sailing.
    You say speed and technoligy over match racing and skill, for the last fucken time  you CAN match race a multihull and it  DOES require skill, it is just done at a much faster speed, and anytime you want to go head to head with me on equal length mono hull verses multihull, i will easily own you just in pre rece dial up, you will find yourself doing so fucken many penalty turns the crowd will get dizzy, and there`s not a tactic you can use on a mono hull that could defend yourself from the awsome power, speed and agility of a multihull. Sure my tack might take about 1.5 seconds longer but i will be tacking at 3 to 5 times your speed, lets time just how fucking long it takes you to go around a mark at 5 knots verses 20 on a multi, now lets compare a jibe, the problem is the mono hull AC was a sham and those vessels displayed absolutey nothing for what the AC was intended and any backwood country could had entered a hobie and beaten them!  Now piss off!

    • http://twitter.com/antipodeon Sara

      Wow. I wonder if we should ask your marketing students at the Australian School of Business what they think of a brand ambassador denigrating the heritage of that brand in order to reinvent it for a new audience. 

      There is no doubt that match racing a multihull can be done – the last America’s Cup proves it quite well, but to date, that is not the attributes that have been promoted by the ACEA and ACRM. Instead, time-trials have been proposed as part of the event format and the media and fans are being fed on a diet of speed and addrenalin. 

      There’s nothing wrong with that, but to write off the last 150+ years as a sham or somehow against the intention of the America’s Cup shows contempt for generations of sailors including many who are competing this time around. 

      You make a compelling argument for match racing in multi-hulls, it’s just a shame you missed the point of the article. 

  • http://www.yachtsponsorship.com YachtSponsorship

    Wow. I wonder if we should ask your marketing students at the Australian School of Business what they think of a brand ambassador denigrating the heritage of that brand in order to reinvent it for a new audience. 

    There is no doubt that match racing a multihull can be done – the last America’s Cup proves it quite well, but to date, that is not the attributes that have been promoted by the ACEA and ACRM. Instead, time-trials have been proposed as part of the event format and the media and fans are being fed on a diet of speed and addrenalin. 

    There’s nothing wrong with that, but to write off the last 150+ years as a sham or somehow against the intention of the America’s Cup shows contempt for generations of sailors including many who are competing this time around. 

    You make a compelling argument for match racing in multi-hulls, it’s just a shame you missed the point of the article. 

  • General Public Editor

    And my reply to your reply
     
    Go ahead ask them, but I believe you have already heard their answer..Actually feel free to ask the whole fucking world what it thinks of mono hull sailing both in the olympics and the AC. but I guess you have already heard.
    Ask yourself what the general public have said for years that has attributed to the demise of so many good events, ask yourself, without this change where would the ac and olympic events be going, but I know you already know the answer, ask your self, is club sailing in sabots and optis any different, is it time the Sydney to Hobart got support from pure sailing, the answer to this is onboard the start boat, gentlemen start your engines, yes it is a sham! Pity you missed my point..Lets hope the new generation can step back in time to a modern version that we havent seen for decades..