America's Cup: "Bet on self-interest!"

No sooner have the Italians made good on their threat to withdraw from the America's Cup as a result of the change of class to smaller boats than chief marketer Harvey Schiller has once again stepped forward in a public statement by the America's Cup organisers. Instead of fighting behind the scenes to reach an agreement, the feuding camps are now publicly battling over moral and legal rights. Schiller admitted: "I know that everyone is disappointed with the decision made by Luna Rossa. Especially in light of their significant history in the America's Cup." However, this realisation does not seem to have dissuaded Schiller from the course of total commercialisation of the event and the small format decided upon for the catamarans in the 35th America's Cup. On the contrary. The former Air Force pilot, vice-president of Turner Sports, risk manager and baseball marketer is continuing his course of commercialisation in the America's Cup unabated - and in doing so is putting at risk what has made the Cup so successful in its 164-year history: its uniqueness.

Schiller has no sympathy for the Luna Rossa team's decision: "Unfortunately, Luna Rossa was not prepared to accept the majority decision, which was made in accordance with the rules for the America's Cup." With these words, Schiller is mocking the Italians, who did not want to see such a far-reaching decision enforced by a simple majority. But Schiller also claims: "It is difficult to understand the withdrawal when our common interest was to keep costs under control, encourage more teams to participate and give the America's Cup a better future. The whole thing is all the more surprising as it was Luna Rossa who insisted on a majority decision in such cases."

This is precisely what the Italians are disputing, who are also opposing the far too late class change in the current competition and refusing the blatant U-turn. After all, the decision in favour of the smaller boats puts them at a particular disadvantage, as they are in a solid financial position and were already well advanced in their design development for the larger AC62 Cup catamarans originally planned. Theoretically, you can imagine the situation as follows: A new discipline with six-man bobsleighs is announced for the Olympic Games. The strongest nations get started immediately, test the material, hire clever designers and develop these new six-man bobsleighs. Halfway through the Olympic Games, the decision is cancelled because - surprise surprise - many nations cannot afford six-man bobsleighs. Instead, three-man bobsleighs are now to be used because they are more cost-effective. One can imagine that those nations that were already well advanced in the development of their six-man bobsleighs would be less than delighted with such a manoeuvre in the middle of the competition.

It is more than regrettable that Prada patriarch Patrizo Bertelli and his Luna Rossa Challenge, some of the best-known and most passionate Cup hunters, are now being sidelined in this way. In any case, the Cup organisers can be blamed for coming far too late with their changes. In no other serious sport would it be conceivable to change the rules so drastically in the middle of a competition without the undivided consent of all participants. Assuming that at least the defenders have been planning for the small Cup format for some time, they have now given themselves an enormous advantage. The fact that some of the challenger teams have nevertheless sided with the defenders in the vote on the class change is easily explained by their financing problems. In line with the motto "Smaller is cheaper and therefore better for us", the syndicates that voted in favour acted primarily out of self-interest and once again gave away a large part of the fascination of the Cup in return. What's more, they have not done the Cup any great favours in its efforts to gain a reputation as a serious sport. The question arises as to whether it is really fair to deprive teams that started early of the advantages they have gained by starting the technology competition from scratch long after the starting signal in order to attract newcomers.

The arguments in favour of the new small format also seem less credible because the introduction of the large AC62 catamarans was advertised with the same justification around a year ago. At the time, Oracle Team USA's skipper Jimmy Spithill said of the AC62 catamarans: "The new boats will be significantly lighter and sail under less load than the ones we sailed in the last Cup. This will result in major cost savings when it comes to building the boats." Oh yeah, that didn't work out so well. Maybe Spithill wasn't just wrong back then. Perhaps many experts are right when they point out that a few metres more or less do not affect the construction costs of a Cup prototype that much, because the design and development work that has to be done for each size of Cup yacht makes up the expensive part?

So why has this change come so late in the 35th Cup cycle? In sailing circles, people like to tell the story that Cup king Dennis Conner once said when asked about the background to a controversial Cup decision: "Bet on self-interest. In the America's Cup, you're always right." The Americans' self-interest in this case is linked to the fear of losing more teams than just Luna Rossa and the hope that the small catamarans, which are expected to have various standardised components, will attract new Cup teams to the spectacle, which has suffered a sharp drop in participation since the Americans took the helm after their court-enforced and won unequal duel against Alinghi in 2010. The leap from the "Flintstone era to the Facebook generation" and the mobilisation of new teams and large crowds of fans that they have been striving for since then has not yet been successful.