In 2017, the America's Cup will be contested off Bermuda for the 35th time. But the teams are already setting the course for the future. Sir Ben Ainslie knows: "One of the six teams in the current competition will win the Cup." So its future can and should be discussed now.
His own Land Rover BAR team was not planned as a one-off from the outset. The base camp in Portsmouth is a model for the future and is intended to be a high-tech home for the British team for as many Cup cycles as possible. Only recently, Sir Ainslie and the Duchess of Cambridge inaugurated the new "Tech Deck" training centre there, which enables schoolchildren and students to use the America's Cup for high-level teaching.
Ainslie agrees with his marketing director Martin Whitmarsh, who learned his trade as an engineer and above all as a top manager in the service of the McLaren Formula 1 racing team, that the America's Cup needs to be further modernised. On Wednesday, the Brits want to present a new major team partner from the business world. Ainslie and Whitmarsh believe it is essential to make the Cup even more attractive, more compact and easier to understand in order to retain such partners in sailing and the America's Cup in the future.
One of the proposals that Sir Ainslie is now discussing publicly is to shorten the Cup cycle from four to two years. In addition, the Englishman believes that the teams should commit to the next Cup cycle in advance instead of waiting for the new defender to publish a protocol for the next Cup as well as the venue, boat class and many other framework conditions after a Cup edition, as has been customary to date and in accordance with the Cup foundation charter. This would make negotiations with sponsors and TV stations much easier to conduct and long-term planning more feasible for the teams.
Martin Whitmarsh told the British daily newspaper "The Telegraph": "If we look at what we have today, it is a product with a much greater commercial value than ever before." He praised five-time America's Cup winner and current head of the America's Cup Event Authority (ACEA) Russell Coutts. It is "to his great credit": "He had the vision and the courage to implement the changes that have brought the America's Cup to where it is today." Now the British want to step up the pace of modernisation and not wait again to see what the next defender might have in mind.
Sir Ainslie is aware that a further intensification of the format could upset the traditionalists, but is not backing away from his course, telling the Telegraph: "I'm a bit of a traditionalist myself. I love the history and heritage of the America's Cup. Also the old boats, the Isle of Wight, Queen Victoria. We have to preserve that. I was also sceptical at first about the switch to multihulls." In the meantime, however, the most successful Olympic sailor in the sport's history is convinced that the Cup is sailing on the right course. "It's really about bringing the teams together and saying: 'Yes, we have this incredible history and this 165-year-old set of rules. But if we're smart enough and work together, we can do better.' It's about utilising the existing potential." According to the Englishman, discussions with the other teams about the future have already begun. Whitmarsh says: "There really does seem to be a general desire and will, the realisation that we are on the cusp of something bigger."
Before the discussions continue, however, sport is back on the agenda: the next regatta in the Louis Vuitton America's Cup World Series will take place next weekend (11 and 12 June) off Chicago on Lake Michigan. For the first time, a fleet of Cup boats will be competing in fresh water rather than salt water. Sailors and spectators can expect stadium sailing at its best off Monroe Harbour. Servus TV will broadcast the races on Saturday and Sunday from 8.30 pm to 10 pm.
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
