Winner takes all?

In his latest diary OneWorld navigator Mark Chisnell questions whether this is helping the America's Cup

A more even sharing of the financial rewards might also encourage more teams into the event, and keep them playing for longer. It's not rocket science to figure out what needs to be done - there are plenty of successful models to follow in other sports. We could lose the rules limiting technology transfer as a starter, and hand back the ownership of these assets to the teams that have paid for them. It doesn't make sense that the rules forbid a team from selling the technology that they may have spent two, three or even six years developing. The boats can be sold, but they're of limited value without the drawings, engineering calculations, testing results and all the other paraphernalia the team will have built up around them.

Anyone getting out of the game has to dump just about their entire investment, destroying the technology and management base, and flogging the boats as - well, second-hand boats. At the same time, anyone new coming into the America's Cup will have to spend, spend, spend to reinvent the same wheel that the exiting teams are so busy destroying.

But if you really wanted to move things along, a process could be set-up to bid for the venue - just like the Olympics and the World Cup. The money could go into a pool, the bulk of which would be prize-money for the competing teams - much as the television rights money gets distributed amongst teams in other pro sports.

In the short to medium-term it would be a good investment to put some of this money aside to develop the event. Spending now on television, website production and broadcast, along with promotional regattas away from the main event, would reap dividends in the long-term. The Cup could acquire the kind of status where the big television companies would be snapping at people's fingers for the broadcast rights, and then how big would the prize pool be? It's in this kind of environment that teams can flourish and create a permanent future as a business, just as in Formula One.

But I'm not holding my breath waiting for these changes. Let's face it - having won the lottery, no one normally wanders down to the tax office and hands it all back for the good of the community. It's like a Freedom of Information Act, it seems a great idea when you're in opposition, but goes right to the bottom of the to-do list as soon as you're in power.

Short-term self-interest determines the actions of the winner when it comes to writing the rules of the next Cup - ahead of the long-term, common good of the event. So the technology transfer rules stay in place, to make it harder for a strong challenger to emerge at the next defence. And the Cup goes where the winner wants it, to reap whatever real-estate harvest they may have sown.

It will take a far-sighted winner to make the moves that could propel the America's Cup on to a level with Formula One. But I think it can be done, and we have a few of those people involved this time - it would be quite a legacy for that involvement. So who wants to be Bernie Ecclestone?