The annual pro sailing series are coming to the end of their 2012 seasons. It’s a time of year when we can look back at the previous 12 months and also reflect about how the next year might be different.
In 2008, we asked Mark Turner, the man behind the Extreme Sailing Series how he saw the ‘state of the nation’. Four years on, his response ran to nearly 2000 words of insight into the America’s Cup, IMOCA class, Vendee Globe and Volvo Ocean Race. We’ve broken it into two parts but still in his own words – with no editorialising from us…
Part 1 – The last 12 months…
By Mark Tuner, OC Sport
The differentiation and separation of the two distinct poles of sailing continues to widen – these two poles being the commercially funded professional sailing teams and events and ‘private owner’ primarily funded fleets racing in a mixture of event types more often than not through yacht club programmes.
Both are being affected by the tightened budgets and general economic crises in the sport’s traditional markets. Such tightening, whilst painful for all of us, is also leading to the kind of debates and decisions that should have happened while the ‘sun was shining’. Some less credible or solid projects are falling away, programmes that depended on sometimes hard to justify government subsidy are in question (European ones that is), and the important players are talking between them about how to work together, to merge events, to re-organise, to strengthen the offer to brands and host venues.
On the private side, what was aiming to be a commercial event, the TP52 Audi MedCup seems to have successfully migrated back to an event focused on the needs of the owners, showing that it is possible to migrate from one to the other and back again (it started out as that).
On the commercial side, the big guns like the Volvo Ocean Race have accelerated their plans to slash the cost of participation in this crown jewel, and the Vendée Globe who should be very happy with the 20 boat fleet they had in Les Sables are nonetheless posing the question about what do they need to do now for 2016 – both in commercial terms, but also, in Open class, what technically is necessary to help the commercial sell – in particular for this ‘Everest’ that will always have a high non-finisher rate, what failure rate is ok, and what could be managed better by the Class Rules and related decisions to take on One Design/safety margins.
The America’s Cup, that iconic yet commercially complex and forever unstable ‘summit’ of our sport, continues on a fairly predictable trajectory of being underpinned by significant private money, with eye-watering amounts of money being spent by a small number of teams, yet nonetheless taking the sport and putting it in front of a new American audience at least, and developing a lot of cool and innovative things both on the water and on the screen – sadly most of which of course no-one else can afford (yet).
Having the advantage of not really ever needing to pay its way, it will continue as the event that sits in neither camp happily – its neither a fully commercially viable event, nor an event which will ever exist purely in the private owner domain.
Money attracts money (and brands). Its history and power (especially when you win) remains such an incredible prize that there will always be people ready to chase at all cost.
The Cup has nonetheless confirmed one major trend that only seems to get more certain – that the part of the sport that is growing commercially, gets the fact that it needs to entertain more than just the people out on the boats sailing (although that is plenty sufficient for the ‘private owner’ world).
The move towards Stadium sailing, or at least bringing the action closer, was truly confirmed this year – Extreme Sailing Series on 3 continents with a record crowd in its 6 year history for the Porto Act, the ACWS warm-up Cup series delighting the San Francisco shoreline in particular, the Olympics medal races on the ‘Nothe’ in stadium mode for the first time ever, the MOD European Tour featuring City Races as equally as important as the offshore side – and the Volvo Ocean Race with its technological muscle-power bringing more action back from the middle of the ocean in to their virtual stadium.
Reaching and downwind starts becoming ‘normal’, audiences across the globe seeing the action metres from their noses, the sailor’s hearing the cheers and being able to actual communicate to the crowds directly. This was all unthinkable, at least in the minds of many purist sailors, a decade ago. We’ve been doing that since 2007 with Extreme Sailing Series, but its now becoming a core requirement of any commercially funded sailing event.
The private owner neither needs, nor often wants, to entertain anyone that isn’t on the boat. The rest of the sport has no choice – and it’s the same choices that many other ‘minority’ sports have had to make. Archery in city centres, biathlon with penalty turns and grandstands, Twenty20 cricket, shorter formats, more entertainment, right across sport.
At the same time, developments in sailing’s ’emerging’ markets continue apace with the ground-breaking Oman Sail charging forward, leading to interest that we’ve seen from some of the leading African and other Asian nations in similar programmes.
Oman Sail, kick-started with government funding, is now growing not just its own commercial partnerships, but actually growing the sponsorship sector in Oman and the region. Sailing is leading the way in sport business development – with strong socio-economic objectives in parallel.
Sailing really can be an incredible and powerful tool to help change and promote a nation. Others want to follow…keep your eyes peeled for these developments in Asia and the wealthier parts of Africa in particular.
The Next 12 Months in Sailing
The next 12 months will I’m sure be a continuance of these trends – some contraction and rationalisation of the European/traditional sectors, continued development of the new emerging markets, and the consistent existence of well funded private owner campaigns in that sector. Recessions have not hit the high net worth individuals that run campaigns like Ran – or equally Artemis, Oracle.
The ongoing success of the ‘made for high net worth private owner’ RC44 class is a great example of this – new money, new owners, very often in their first sailing campaign. That is a good thing for the overall sport. But what we still don’t have in great numbers in the sport is the crossover, outside of the America’s Cup at least -i.e. the equivalent of the football setup, the wealthy team owners ready to develop and fund their own sporting teams in the fully professional arena.
The next 12 months will of course see this ‘new’ America’s Cup format play out with certainly some drama on and off the water – and unfortunately for the sport, this key event due to its magnitude, will once again keep everyone waiting.
Whoever wins is likely to change the game again, at least the rules, and anyone trying to sell a future campaign won’t know what they are selling probably until early 2014 at best. That Deed of Gift has a lot to answer for, good and bad!
The key for the events that are somehow linked to what the AC does, is don’t depend on it at any time.
The ‘gamble’ of the Volvo Ocean Race to go to a new formula will play out too this coming year – the well thought through move to a One Design and a more contained budget hopefully yielding the desired results. 15 million Euros is still a mighty large amount to find today in the corporate world even if the product appears to provide a very good return, and is now a solid package for a global brand on both B2B and consumer side.
It will be a critical year for two other major ocean racing classes – IMOCA and MOD70. Sir Keith Mills (via vehicle called OSM) has taken the plunge to invest and try and develop the IMOCA circuit (although without the IMOCA and ORMA rights) from a commercial perspective – it took 10 years of discussion on this inside IMOCA to get to the point of accepting it needed more than a Skippers’ Association to move the ‘product’ on.
The question is whether the horse has bolted, with 2013 being the difficult year in that circuit anyway post Vendee and very few campaigns today (two to my knowledge so far beyond 2013) with budgets in place today for the post Vendee Globe era.
The decision about One Design for IMOCA, and the consequent control of budgets that that may have brought, was delayed – so the product for Sir Keith and his team to develop is not yet clear.
For MOD likewise, after achieving certainly the necessary minimum levels of success, technically and in terms of visibility in 2012 with its inaugural circuit season, 2013 will be the year where it needs to convert in to a longer term platform. With everyone struggling to find new funds on both project and event side, and giants like Michel Desjoyeaux struggling in France and looking overseas, it is not clear today who will win through. The platform itself has proved itself well in its inaugural year – every boat finishing every race – a first time possibly for the ORMA/multi class in France for many years. And there is no doubting, whatever your personal persuasion, of the spectacular nature of giant multihulls, and their ability to entertain and impress viewers – be they sailors or not.
In both cases, IMOCA and MOD, the longer term sustainability of the circuits was always going to be about becoming more international in both the teams and the events. Now that France, belatedly compared with its European neighbours, is finally feeling the full force of a major economic correction and budget crunch, everyone is looking further afield.
Yet is it too late, and too much to ask that new markets suddenly become converts to professional sailing sponsorships and take the place of ailing European markets? Asia moves quicker than Europe, but it will still take time. I’d say we’re in a 5 to 10 year transition, or re-balancing. Such transitions bring great challenges, but also opportunities.
With a lot of people chasing essentially the same money across IMOCA, MOD and Volvo Ocean Race, there is certainly a big question of whether they can all co-exist, at least in terms of annual circuits.
For IMOCA, with the bedrock of Barcelona World Race with ongoing Spanish government support seemingly in place, and the Everest of the Vendée Globe, one imagines it can continue sufficiently in this mode with or without a fuller 4 year circuit.
For MOD, the existing teams have a lot of vested interests to ensure their new investments work hard for the next couple of years. Its hard to imagine it not surviving.
For Volvo, their firepower and funding of what is arguably the biggest event in the sport in commercial terms, should hold it together.
But these are uncertain times, and it certainly won’t all go to plan.
Despite all of that, sailing remains as a sport very well placed – perceivably eco friendly, full of passion and emotion, increasingly global, aspirational for the newly wealthy in the nations that are going to shape the next decade economically, and still very accessible in terms of the athletes. It has an incredible list of brands involved, from premium sectors, as well as in some countries like France, mainstream consumer. It has an experiential offer second to none to attract B2B brands.
There are plenty of reasons why sailing will prosper! Sailing has the same struggles as other minority sports – and misses three key revenue streams when compared with similar sports; ticketing (first attempts in Stadium Sailing events happening with some minor success), TV rights (non-existent – most events, including the AC are paying channels to take their content or at least providing free of rights), and compared with motorsport we don’t have the ‘manufacturers funding’ teams (eg Renault).
Yet we are still asking for some big dollars. The fact the commercial side of the sport has still continued to develop is testament, despite all these challenges, that we have a really great product. That is if we can present it clearly enough…
The lack of leadership and sport-wide presence or credibility of ISAF has been a positive in many ways, allowing many great innovations in events and technology, never held back by an over-controlling, slow-moving Federation (many sports have this issue) – but its also something in the long term that needs to change. A new progressive ISAF President will hopefully help.
It always amazes me that in our sport we can talk about all the important and major things and not mention the Olympics – but of course this other pinnacle of the sport matters a lot.
It’s the entry point for most professional sailors (rather than the end of a career as it is for many other athletes), and it matters. The kite versus windsurfing debate seems to behind us – surely it should have been a debate about which dinghy to drop, not made in to a battle between two of the sports most accessible and exciting products – maybe in 2013 ISAF can focus on promoting all the great aspects of the sport.
Choices of boats or platforms seem to consume the ISAF world – in reality, one thing we have to always remind ourselves, is that outside of our bubble, the majority of people do not know what the difference between a monohull and multihull is. Let alone between a 470 and a 49er.
Yes we need to choose the right platforms for the right objective/event, but the fact is most people really don’t know the differences. When you are trying to raise funds, remember that FACT!
Good luck in 2013 – I think we are all going to need it!