Match making

We speak to President of the Swedish Match Tour, Pierre Tinnerholm

Swedish Match, Swedish Match Cup, Swedish Match Tour - every July at the holiday island of Marstrand on Sweden’s west coast these three names and separate entities converge for Scandinavia's premiere match racing event.

Centre stage in Marstrand is Pierre Tinnerholm, President of the Swedish Match Tour who is also in charge of the global sponsorship for Swedish Match, the parent company of several brands of what are known as ‘OTPs’, (other tobacco products – ie: other than cigarettes) and several match and lighter brands.

It is a fortunate coincidence, considering their names, that for the last 10 years Swedish Match have backed their country’s top match racing event - the Swedish Match Cup here in Marstrand. Back in 1993 match racing skipper Magnus Holmberg together with the Royal Gothenberg Yacht Club (the GKSS) approached the company with a view to them backing a new match racing event. The following year the Swedish Match Cup was born.

“We didn’t know if it would work being here because it is narrow, etc,” Tinnerholm told thedailysail yesterday, seated in his corporate lair over looking the Marstrand race course. Today the Swedish Match Cup grown to become Sweden's second largest sporting event behind a leading cross country skiing event. The racing here is broadcast live on national TV daily with more than two hours being transmitted on two hours Friday and 4-5 hours daily over the final weekend.

The annual Marstrand event is, alongside the Bermuda Gold Cup, one of the most well attended events in the calendar in the match racing calendar outside of the America’s Cup. This year the Swedish Match Cup features top names such as Coutts, Gilmour, Holmberg (x2), Brady, Baird, Bank, Jablonski, Law, etc.

Aside from their involvement with match racing, Swedish Match also sponsored Roger Nilson and Gunnar Krantz’s entry in the 1997/8 Whitbread Round the World Race. “With all the knowledge that we had built up during the Swedish Match Cups and the Whitbread race, we took that and evaluated everything we’d done and talked everything through and wondered what we should do next,” explains Tinnerholm of their position after the Whitbread. “We didn’t want to do the Volvo Ocean Race again, but we were very keen on match racing and the Swedish Match Cup was very successful.”

Following an approach to Swedish Match by Scott MacLeod and the Match Racing Association, so the Swedish Match Tour was born in 1999, filling a void that had been left on the international match racing circuit after Omega’s departure.

A popular misconception is the Swedish Match Tour is a number of match racing events Swedish Match organise. In fact the Tour draws together a number of existing events, to form an annual championship that rather awkwardly runs from the mid-July to mid-July each year, as it always concludes with the Swedish Match Cup. This unifying of match racing events benefits the individual events by making them part of a bigger entity while Swedish Match supply additional marketing bonuses such as international TV and PR.

Another significant point about Swedish Match's involvement with the Tour is that it is not a simple sponsorship. The ‘Tour’ is owned by Swedish Match just as the Volvo Ocean Race is owned by Volvo. “It's a business,” explains Tinnerholm. “We want to make money out of it. When you own this you have full control of the money and of what happens - you drive the boat - whereas with sponsorship you hand over a bunch of money to someone and then you pray to God they are doing the right thing with it, but you are not driving the boat, you are sitting at the back.

“So Swedish Match have invested in the company [Swedish Match Tour] and they want to see a return - that could be exposure, selling the company to get the money back, or more external sponsorship. And Swedish Match can decide what they do with their contribution - if they want to lower the money they put into the company, etc. So in a worst case scenario it is like a traditional sponsorship where it gets us exposure. The best case scenario is to sell the company, get exposure and earn money on it. So it is a business deal.” A major partner in the Tour is expected to be announced shortly.

Facing the obvious advertising constraints of a tobacco company, Swedish Match put 90% of their annual sports marketing spend into the Tour. Aside from this they also sponsor a Swedish speedway driver and the Swedish Open tennis tournament.

Primarily they use the Tour for ‘business to business’ purposes, the Swedish Match Cup the only domestic event on their circuit being the jewel in their crown. This year they are shipping in 250 of their dealers and customers from all over the world to Marstrand to watch the match racing and make merry. Last night the grinning troupe enjoyed a ‘German theme evening' in a marquee here complete with umm-paa band and enthusiastic striking of beer mugs.

“Corporate hospitality is our main thing,” says Tinnerholm. “Exposure is not really our thing. Swedish Match is not a brand, it is a company name. Swedish Match is a global company with offices around the world and what we try to do is take the race to where our offices are. It is like the Whitbread but on a smaller scale.

“Here in Marstrand it is a unique atmosphere. It is fantastic. This is the beauty with sailing and match race sailing. We have Andy Green and he is an excellent commentator and he creates drama and extra interest for our guests. Most of our guests are not deeply into sailing but when they leave this island they have much more understanding of match racing and here you can almost touch the boats and it is first cross the line wins.”

So what was the attraction of sailing for Swedish Match? “The companies involved with sailing, you just have to look around their board of directors or their CEO or someone on that level, is usually fond of sailing. So when they started all this there were a couple of people within the organisation at a higher level who were keen on sailing and the rest is history. Of course it is very environmentally friendly sport and it is global - we are a global company and it is important to spread the events around the world for the Tour.

It also at present is good value for money. “The Tour represents a fraction of what we spent on the Whitbread. Everyone thinks we spend more than we do which is a good thing. I wouldn’t say it is a risk, because we are getting things out of it as well, but there is an upside that if we get it right we can get money out of it and get what we want out of it at the same time.”

Sailing is also a highly popular sport in Sweden, the Volvo Ocean Race being part of the cause and effect of this. The country with a population of just 8 million has fielded two entries in the last Volvo Ocean Race and the Whitbread before that, statistics that outshine even New Zealand.

“When we looked at the marketplace we wanted to become one of the major sailing events in the world and the two that were out there were Whitbread/Volvo and the America’s Cup," says Tinnerholm of The Tour. "Those events were very expensive to get involved in and they also happen only every four years, although the America’s Cup is different now. We saw there was a blank spot in match race sailing, a spot in the marketplace where for less money we could build up a tour of events that could take place every month for every year, year round. And you have all the best sailors in the world from the America’s Cup [taking part] and that’s something.”

Tinnerholm also feels sailing as a sponsorable sport has much room left for growth. “I don’t know if it is right to compare it to golf, but maybe 20 years ago golf was in the same stage as sailing is today. I think sailing has a good future ahead of it. And the America’s Cup coming to Europe is the best thing for sailing in general, but also for the Tour.”

With the 2003-4 Swedish Match Tour winding up this week, so there is an almost seamless break until the 2004-5 season launches with a brand new event, Match Race Portugal to be held in Cascais later this month. Following the failed bid by Lisbon to host the 32nd America’s Cup, Match Race Portugal is expected to be a massive affair and will be the first time the new Swedish Match 40 yachts are used in anger.

To date the two demonstration boats that were here in Marstrand last year have been sold to BMW Oracle Racing for training while Match Race Portugal have purchased new six boats for their event.

At present for the nine events on the Swedish Match Tour, seven different types of boat are used. Part of Tinnerholm’s vision for the Tour is for it to become more consistent, and his aim is to persuade all the events that they need to invest in the Swedish Match 40. “Portugal will be the ultimate test for the boats,” he says. “All the sailors are eager to test it in tough racing conditions. I think if it passes the test in Cascais, that boat has huge potential and a really bright future.

“We need to evaluate it after Portual and we can get the feedback back from the sailors. I think it is going to be a huge success down there [in Cascais] and we are encouraging other events to buy boats. We will see how the set up works in the future, but right now that’s what we want.”

Aside from this new development, total prize money over the course of the Tour season
has also been increased and now amounts to more than $1 million.

Tinnerholm would also like a more even spread of events around the world, more evenly spread throughout the year. At present with the demise of Tour events in New Zealand and Australia there are no events between the Nippon Cup in November and the Congressional Cup in April, although there is a possible event under discussion to take place in South Africa. They would also like events in South America, the Middle East and Asia, although they currently have the Nippon Cup.

With America's Cup teams increasingly using the Tour to provide their crews with real match race practise between Cups, as well as the valuable opportunity to stay current with the latest rules and thinking of the umpires, the future of the Swedish Match Tour looks bright.

Swedish Match now have their own on line TV station - check this out here