Extreme Sailing Series 2011 Review and 2012 Preview

During the World Yacht Racing Forum, the Extreme Sailing Series announced their 2012 calendar including new events in Portugal and Brazil. We caught up with OC Thirdpole Chairman Mark Turner to discuss some of his highlights of 2011, plans for 2012 and where the Extreme Sailing Series fits in the commercial yacht racing landscape.

Highlight Quotes from the Video

On the global challenge:

We created a lot of stress for ourselves in that big move going global, but for me there isn’t any doubt that we need to be a global circuit.

We are not leaving Europe behind, but there isn’t any doubt that for our circuit the future lies in developing and maintaining the non-european side. Looking after our European stakeholders along the way, but times have changed – they are not changing – they have changed and I think that we are well positioned as a commercial sailing product for the future.

On the business model and where the Extreme Sailing Series fits:

I think we are really well positioned on the team budget level. Next year for a team to be competitive, all inclusive without any crazy salaries is something like 650,000 Euros. For eight events on 3 continents, the per venue cost is pretty good.

In the future I might like to move to some kind of franchise model where you have more commitment from teams for a 3 to 4 year period, which might be better, but it is what it is today.

On the changing world:

I think we are in a real transition. Things have clearly moved outside of Europe and any dynamic activity for a company, any new market spend, any new development spend – these things are not really happening in Europe at the moment and I don’t think they are going to happen at all quite frankly in the future.

The difficulties with sponsorship is that it is a relatively immature discipline in Asia. It is a little bit more conservative and there are concerns – even about going on water for example, but at the same time there is a big aspirational value to sailing that absolutely works.