Ben Ainslie Racing Life After 2012? – Live Press Conference.

On Tuesday 10th January, at 10am, triple Olympic gold medallist Ben Ainslie will officially announce his sporting plans post 2012. The announcement of the announcement has prompted speculation around the world about  a UK backed America’s Cup campaign.

 Watch Ben Ainslie’s Press Conference Live

Ben Ainslie America’s Cup Racing Team Speculation

The management of digital assets in a world where Google-bots index websites within seconds of material being published, can be tricky. In 2011, Energy Team published a story on their section of the America’s Cup website about a sponsorship deal with Corum before the official statement and keen eyed watchers of Prada’s financial declarations spotted the company’s future involvement with the Luna Ross campaign for the 34th America’s Cup.

A slideshow, purporting to show Ben Ainslie Racing (BAR) liveried America’s Cup boats was briefly uploaded to the web – and taken down again, but not before several online platforms got hold of it.

Finally – an America’s Cup team with Personality?

If the rumours are to be believed, then building a sailing team around an individual could be a new step for the sailing event. While many America’s Cup challenges have been the vision of individuals (Denis Conner, Alan Bond, Ted Turner, Ernesto Bertarelli & Larry Ellison to name a few…) the team has never been named after the backer before.

In F1 and NASCAR, the naming of a team after the owner is relatively common – think of Williams F1, Braun F1, and in NASCAR – Rousch, Hendricks, Richard Childress Racing etc…

ORACLE Racing might as well be called Larry Ellison Racing, though the team has been one of the first to make an issue out of the skippers as part of the team names – e.g. Oracle Racing Spithill. Energy Team might as well be called Peyron Racing and perhaps the ability to generate a fanbase might be increased if a person is the figurehead rather than a brand.

All will be revealed on Tuesday if Ben Ainslie and his PR team can keep a lid on it until then.