At a high-calibre panel discussion in front of more than a hundred marketing managers and representatives of sponsoring agencies at the sports sponsoring congress of the ispo trade fair in Munich, Jochen Schümann, sports director of the Swiss syndicate Alinghi, predicted: "Fresh Seventeen will make it."
And once Germany has a participant, sponsorship will accelerate enormously on its own. With a German team at the 32nd America's Cup, sailing will join the ranks of the few top sports in 2007. Because in the year after the football World Cup in Germany and before the Olympics in Beijing, there is no more important sporting event in the world.
Schümann received backing from Dieter Schweer, Chief Marketing Officer of the German Telekom subsidiary T-Systems, who had arranged the sponsorship for the South African AC team Shosholoza. He emphasised that T-Systems had not expressly decided against Fresh Seventeen. Rather, the South Africans fit better into the overall international concept of T-Systems.
"Our involvement signals to other companies that getting involved in sailing is fundamentally worthwhile, because we have weighed up the pros and cons in lengthy detailed studies and have come to a clearly positive conclusion." This could pave the way for other sailing partners more quickly.
Willy Kuhweide said: "Our financing looks promising, we are almost there. Alarmingly, however, so far without the support of German companies. It is time for German entrepreneurs to be bolder in praising the 'Made in Germany' label and to confidently publicise their strengths via such an ideal vehicle as a high-tech sailing campaign."
Sven Herlyn, Chief Representative of Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale (Nord/LB) in Hanover, sponsor of the Nord/LB Baltic Sprint Cup regatta in July, urged the business bosses not to make the success of their involvement dependent solely on sporting success. "A win is just the cream on top of the coffee, an additional opportunity," said Herlyn, "the marketing strategy has to work through the participation alone. For him, an investment in sailing is simply the ideal platform both for cultivating business contacts and for inspiring end consumers.
