America's Cup questions.

[Twister_Ken]

America\'s Cup questions.

1. How much money has been spent on failing to challenge Alingi for the America's Cup?
2. How much money has been spent on winning the challenge to Alingi for the America's Cup?
3. How much money has Alingi spent in preparing to defend the Americas Cup?
4. How much more money will defender and challenger spend before cup is won, or lost?
5. How much money do the answers to questions 1, 2, 3 & 4 add up to?
6. How could that money be better spent on promoting sailing?

(Hint - my suggestion - build a fleet of simple 25 foot 4 berth yachts, and make them available for sail training to youf organisations.)

 

[Richard10002]

Re: America\'s Cup questions.

You could say the same for any cutting edge sporting events... e.g. Formula 1.... and The Space Shuttle stuff, and so on.

Playing Devils Advocate:

The thing is that developments in cutting edge stuff eventually find their way to the consumer market, so we can have blocks with ball bearings, carbon fibre spars, GPS chartplotters and so on..... not much different to many forms of research which cost a fortune.

 

[flaming]

Re: America\'s Cup questions.

I don't know the exact figures, but it's an awful lot of money.

BUt since when is the America's cup about promoting sailing? It never has been, it never will be and it never should be.

Look at F1 now, it's been constanly reworked and redone to make it appeal to the masses and it's still loosing public interest.
Try and do that to the America's cup and you'll kill it. The americas cup is all about the very best sailors and designers doing what they do best. Sailing is barely a spectator sport for people who participate and follow it actively. Trying to make it appeal to the average football fan is a waste of time and money.

The america's cup should stay as it is as long as the cash is there to support it.

And who really wants to see more boats on the Solent? How much bitching goes on on these very pages about the overcrowding already!?

Personally I'd like to see a greater proportion of the boats that sail trying racing. How do you do that? Pretty sure televising racing that is so far from the norm in terms of size, speed and cash will do nothing to persuade the average cruising sailor to give it a go. Would televising some decent racing in boats more like what most cruisers sail? Possibly, but in my experience the only thing that works in that respect is getting out as crew. They either get the bug or swear never to race again!

 

[Twister_Ken]

Re: America\'s Cup questions.

>And who really wants to see more boats on the Solent? <

Who mentioned the Solent?

>Personally I'd like to see a greater proportion of the boats that sail trying racing. How do you do that?<

How about by training a bunch of kids to race boats, even if the boats have logos for BMW, Oracle or WTF-else-sponsored-AC-boats plastered all over them?

 

[Sybarite]

Re: America\'s Cup questions.

Exactly Ken and it's a point I have raised myself. If it's all about advertising how many optimist sails could you get all over the country for the price of one AC challenge? I believe it becomes a moral problem as well when enormous sums are spent but then this is true for most professional sports.

John

 

[Rob_Webb]

Re: America\'s Cup questions.

[ QUOTE ]
How about by training a bunch of kids to race boats, even if the boats have logos for BMW, Oracle or WTF-else-sponsored-AC-boats plastered all over them?

[/ QUOTE ]

This already happens all over the world under various youth training programmes.

The AC is about providing that ultimate incentive for thse kids to aspire to, like the Olympic games, with all the appeal that comes from 'big sport'.

In terms of the money spent, across the 4 major teams it will be well over USD$500m and across all the teams probably in the $1bn region, I'm estimating.

But what's wrong with that? It is a whole industry in it's own right. And a legitimate one at that. This money hasn't all been wasted on champagne p!ss-ups, it's gone into hundreds of businesses around the world who are supporting the whole event and kept thousands of people employed either directly or indirectly for years.

I see absolutely no morale issue at all, unless you have decided to close down football and Formula 1 and all other 'big sports' to fund other causes and the AC campaing is the 'obscene' last man standing.

 

[Rob_Webb]

Re: America\'s Cup questions.

Couldn't agree more (you might be suprised to hear).

 

[tangofour]

Re: America\'s Cup questions.

[ QUOTE ]
1. How much money has been spent on failing to challenge Alingi for the America's Cup?
...................
6. How could that money be better spent on promoting sailing?


[/ QUOTE ]

1 - How much money has been spent in Iraq?

2 - How much money will be poured into bottomless failing state IT projects?

2 - How much money is being handed out by the state to freeloaders?

Q - How could all that money have better been utilised for police, prisons, hospitals, teachers?

The Americas cup pales into insignificance!

/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[flaming]

Re: America\'s Cup questions.

[ QUOTE ]


>Personally I'd like to see a greater proportion of the boats that sail trying racing. How do you do that?<

How about by training a bunch of kids to race boats, even if the boats have logos for BMW, Oracle or WTF-else-sponsored-AC-boats plastered all over them?

[/ QUOTE ]

Getting the kids to race is one thing, turning that into more boats on start lines is something else entirely. Yacht racing is a very expensive passtime, and no kid intorduced to sailing that way is going to be able to afford to buy a boat.
You may enthuse a few kids to get into crewing and start doing so actively, but if you're about getting kids into the sport then dinghys are the right way to do that, not yachts, as the cash goes a lot further.
As a way of illustrating, when I was at uni (not so long ago!) I investigated the posibility of buying a couple of beat up keelboats for match racing training. This was about the time the RYA were selling their first class eights, so it wasn't totally out of the question. However the costs were just unjustifiable, and the club ended up fundraising for 3 years to raise about 1/3 of the cash for 6 new fireflys to team race in.

 

[xcw]

Re: America\'s Cup questions.

Exactly. We should be far more concerned about this as it is OUR MONEY the government is spending. AC is funded by a few wealthy individuals and corporations - they can spend THEIR money however they wish.

 

[CliveSmith]

Re: America\'s Cup questions.

Unless it's your money why do you think you have a say in how it's spent?

If the super rich want to "squander" their money (and whatever corporate sponsorship they can raise) on chasing
the Auld Mug then who are we to say no?

When you're at the pinacle of any sport your spending shed loads of money. Yachting at almost every level is expensive and even more so at the highest levels.

Stuff the youth, rich men have rights too.

Anyway, the America's Cup went wrong the day they stopped using 12 metre boats.

They complained that no-one used the Twelves for anything but the America's Cup and then they introduce an America's Cup boat that is used for nothing else and is far less seaworthy than the craft they replaced.

Bring back the 12's. You heard it here frst.

 

[Rob_Webb]

Re: America\'s Cup questions.

Actually the whole AC class is outdated and (in my opinion) should be replaced by today's leading edge designs which would provide far quicker upwind and downwind speeds (like the VOR designs).

But with the investment that has gone into the current class rule especially by some of the newcomers who have bought cast-off boats from the leading syndicates, they would be severly disadvantaged by this.

 

[MikeBz]

Re: America\'s Cup questions.

[ QUOTE ]
Unless it's your money why do you think you have a say in how it's spent?

If the super rich want to "squander" their money (and whatever corporate sponsorship they can raise) on chasing
the Auld Mug then who are we to say no?

[/ QUOTE ]

But the super-rich only want to do it because they think everyone is watching (maybe) - OK that's one hell of an assumption which may not be entirely true! But if there is some truth in it then the opinions of those watching does matter 'cos you (Larry, Ernesto et al) want them to keep them watching.

Mike

 

[temptress]

Re: America\'s Cup questions.

[ QUOTE ]
How much money has been spent on ...

[/ QUOTE ]

you miss th epoint. THE Americas Cup has (and is) always been about Rich men spending their own money.

This is what is happening now ( although it's dressed up in sponsorship amd the like). There are already programs to promote youth racing but you could always sell your boat and give them the money you raise. After all this is pretty much what you are suggesting the likes Of Ellison and his friends do. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[MikeBz]

Re: America\'s Cup questions.

[ QUOTE ]
Actually the whole AC class is outdated and (in my opinion) should be replaced by today's leading edge designs which would provide far quicker upwind and downwind speeds (like the VOR designs).

[/ QUOTE ]

Whilst I'm all in favour of whizz-bang high-speed racing machines (I raced 18' skiffs for 4 years) I think that a match racing contest should be a game of strategy not speed. Match racing and team racing works much better in slower less nimble boats.

Mike

 

[flaming]

Re: America\'s Cup questions.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Actually the whole AC class is outdated and (in my opinion) should be replaced by today's leading edge designs which would provide far quicker upwind and downwind speeds (like the VOR designs).

[/ QUOTE ]

Whilst I'm all in favour of whizz-bang high-speed racing machines (I raced 18' skiffs for 4 years) I think that a match racing contest should be a game of strategy not speed. Match racing and team racing works much better in slower less nimble boats.

Mike

[/ QUOTE ]

I completely agree, and I would add that this is exactly the reason that attempts to turn the cup into a general interest spectator sport are doomed to failure.

 

[Rob_Webb]

Re: America\'s Cup questions.

Yes, to a point, although you need to balance that with spectator tolerance for watching outdated slugs! Actually as long as things are pretty even (whether fast or slow) match-racing is fun to do and watch.

 

[Rob_Webb]

Re: America\'s Cup questions.

I agree exactly.