Ben Ainslie has officially revealed that he will skipper, and put his name to, a new America’s Cup World Series team. Ben Ainslie Racing (or BAR) will fly a British flag and represent a Cornish yacht club, but will not challenge for the 34th America’s Cup. Instead, Ben Ainslie will join Oracle Racing as part of their defence of the trophy.
The essence of the deal was summed up by ORACLE Racing CEO Russell Coutts when he said:
“I would rather be sailing with Ben than against him”
The Ben Ainslie AC 45 team is ‘underwritten’ by Oracle Racing, but BAR say that they are looking for commercial partners to help fund the 3 million euros required to compete in 4-5 races. Ainslie was at pains to make the point that BAR is not an ORACLE team, but little details, like his BAR jacket being PUMA and not Henri Lloyd blur the lines.
No other sailors have been announced, but those choices don’t need to be made instantly. The commercial and operations team will include Grant Simmer and Nick Masson with communications support from Jo Grindley at Into the Blue PR.
There is a vision for BAR to gain experience from sailing in the supporting act of the America’s Cup in order to mount a proper challenge with a British flag sometime in the future.
The difference between the America’s Cup and the America’s Cup World Series will be lost on most people. Most of the ‘regular’ press who turned up to the press conference will not have the inclination to explain the difference. The BBC ran the story with the headline: “Ben Ainslie to Launch America’s Cup Team After Olympics.” - but did in fact make the distinction between the two America’s Cups.
The arrangement though, should be beneficial for the America’s Cup. The UK is an incredibly important market for ACEA – and a boat with a UK flag should increase interest from UK sponsors and broadcasters and perhaps a few fans as well.
The overlap between Ainslie fans and America’s Cup fans is probably already quite strong, but the Olympics will see Ainslie’s fanbase grow significantly and the World Series can capitalise on that just as they have traded off interest in Loick Peyron’s recent World Record. Quite what happens to BAR fans when Ben goes to sail for ORACLE Racing is yet to be seen.
It’s hard to think of deals in sport where a competitive team funds one of their athletes to compete against them, though it does happen in motor-sport. F1 teams occasionally ‘lend’ drivers to other teams and Red Bull have Torro Rosso as a kind of development team, but this is not really the same.
The deal puts into stark perspective the lengths that ORACLE Racing will go to in order to retain the America’s Cup. The team will effectively have 3 boats out of 11 in the warm-up world series and competition for the top roles on the boat will be intense between sailors like Spithill, Coutts, Ainslie, Bundock & Slingsby.
James Spithill’s Facebook page reported the story as:
Ben Ainslie to join ORACLE Racing’s afterguard.
Personally, I love the fact that the World Series team will be called Ben Ainslie Racing, however the livery and Ben’s personality suggest that BAR is preferred, and once commercial sponsors are found, the team will ultimately be refferred to by the brand of the corporation paying the bills.
Despite most sailing industry promoters acknowledging that sailing needs to make more of the personalities, perhaps Ben is not the one to lead the change, despite his profile. For the cup proper, Ainslie will be another one of the men in black on the roster of talent contracted to the ORACLE Racing squad, which should suit him well.
So Ben Ainslie will compete in the 34th America’s Cup – for the defender. In the meantime, the platform provided by the one-design World Series might help him build a commercial proposition that could see a British challenger for the 35th America’s Cup. ACEA get another top name to put on the poster and the job for the challengers gets a little bit harder
… but you knew all that.
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