America's Cup: Theatre for the next Cup stage

The organisation of the 34th America's Cup in San Francisco Bay is said to have cost taxpayers USD 5.5 million, according to the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper. The article goes on to say that the city of San Francisco invested a total of 20.7 million US dollars in organising the most famous regatta on the planet. And this does not even include the more than 180 million US dollars that were invested in the expansion of the harbour area independently of the regatta.

The most recent edition of the Cup would have attracted 700,000 people to San Francisco. The "San Francisco Chronicle" quotes the Bay Area Council Economic Institute as saying that they spent around 364 million US dollars. This is significantly less than the 902 million US dollars predicted a few months before the start of the regatta. And much less than the 1.4 billion US dollars hoped for in the initial planning for 2010.

So it's no wonder that San Francisco's mayor Ed Lee is no longer able or willing to make the same good offer to host the 35th America's Cup as he did for the previous edition. Since this became clear, there has been an increase in public rumours that the defenders are also considering other venues. A little transparent, this is apparently intended to increase the pressure on the home city of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz.

The names of Newport on Rhode Island, San Diego and even Hawaii appear in international reports. However, none of the three venues can compete with San Francisco's attributes. Newport may have the flair of the old Cup glamour and the right territory, but as a host city it is too small to host a world sporting event in this day and age. San Diego has always lacked the wind for attractive sailing, and in previous Cup editions the yachts often bobbed in the doldrums far from the harbour. And Hawaii? It was and is often brought into play because Cup defender Larry Ellison has acquired his own island here, Lanai. The races could be held off Oahu or Maui. A paradisiacal, but not very likely idea. One thing is undisputed: despite all the teething problems and tragedies, San Francisco has proved to be an attractive stage for the Cup.

The theatre surrounding the future Cup arena, already familiar from previous Cup editions, is likely to continue for a while yet. Until the negotiations between the city and the owners of the Cup have produced a mutually acceptable result. San Francisco is home to the Golden Gate Club, which has supported Ellison in his Cup hunt from the outset. For Ellison himself, San Francisco is his hometown, into which a lot of development work and even more money has been poured over the past five years with the America's Cup in mind. There are not many good reasons to leave this Cup territory and start all over again elsewhere.