Fresh perspective

We sit down with ex-FIFA Marketing CEO turned Alinghi General Manager Patrick Magyar

America's Cup team compounds are no longer just home to the world's most talented racing sailors. Due the increased gravitas of the America's Cup as an international sports fixture , this helped by the new Protocol, the creation of America's Cup Management and the move to Europe, it is also attracting many extremely talented non-sailors. This week for example we read about McLaren Technical Director Adrian Newey who has been attempting to reverse his way out of Formula 1 claiming instead to want a future as part of an America's Cup design team. A man equally respected in his particular sphere of sport is Patrick Magyar, who since September last year has shared the General Managership of Team Alinghi with Grant Simmer.

Magyar, 42, a graduate in Economic Sciences (ie business) from the University of Zurich, started his career specialising in healthcare marketing but rapidly moved into the world of sport and as Deputy Meeting Director of the Weltklasse Zurich, developed Switzerland's largest track and field series. Privately Magyar claims his "grass root sport" remains athletics. He has trained athletes from junior to Olympic level and is currently President of the Swiss Athletics Federation.

In 1997 he was Senior Vice President of sports marketing company ISL Worldwide, but when this company went to the wall in 2001 he was asked by the President of FIFA, the international governing body of football, to become CEO of FIFA Marketing. In this position he sold the FIFA World Cup 2006 before forming his own independent sports marketing consultancy.

"In my little company I used to work as a consultant for ACM," explains Magyar of the route he took to his present role. "After the whole discussion with Russell [Coutts] happened I was asked by Michel Bonnefous to go and see Ernesto Bertarelli and to discuss with him how to move forward, etc. And as a result of that Ernesto made me a job offer. And I said ‘we’ll see how it works out’ and then within two weeks I started..."

In his position as General Manager, Magyar essentially handles everything that doesn't involve the sailing side of Team Alinghi - that falls to Grant Simmer. In this role Maygar says he spends 40-50% of his time on the media and marketing side (by coincidence Margrethe van der Stroom, Team Alinghi's Head of Business Development & Communication and who runs this department, is ex-UEFA and 'sold' Euro 2004) as this is their "bread and butter business", but in addition he resides at the top of the food chain when it comes to Alinghi's financial, legal department and human resource departments.

Effectively Magyar has taken over the role Michel Bonnefous had within Team Alinghi during the last Cup (Bonnefous has since moved on to run ACM). "I have one big advantage - I really don’t understand much about sailing," he claims. "And because that is so, I am never even inclined to talk to Grant, Brad or Jochen so they are quite happy for me to shut up in discussions, but on the other hand we have developed a very good relationship of trust where they let me run this side of the business and I let them run their side of the business."

So what enticed him from football or his first love, athletics? It was the people, says Magyar - Grant Simmer, Brad Butterworth and Ernesto Bertarelli himself. "If you look at Ernesto or Brad - they are world class personalities and I think everyone would be happy to work with them. I had a great feeling, that these were people I could develop with and share things with them and they would help me grow further." With Alinghi having won the America's Cup for landlocked Switzerland, there is also considerable national pride to be derived from working at Team Alinghi.

In terms of how he will make Team Alinghi different from their 2003 campaign, Magyar says the differences have already occurred - there has been the parting of ways with Coutts and this time they have the new role as America's Cup defender, although under the new America's Cup format they are by no means as isolated as past Defenders have found themselves. "Instead of building up under one very strong skipper in competition with all the other challenges - you won’t have that chance," says Magyar. "We now need to build up among our three helmsmen and our strategist a competition which sustains the sportive program."

Having worked at the sharp end of two very different sports and now with several months experience of his third, Magyar has some interesting views about how sailing, in particular the America's Cup, stacks up against other sports.

"It is probably the most complete communication platform. To explain things like team work, excellence, quality of the next step, it is absolutely unique, It is better than any other platform I have ever worked with," he says. "The truth is that I have worked in very technical sports and very physical sports and America’s Cup sailing is probably the only sport I know that combines a team effort, with some very high physical performance, some very high intellectual performance and such a [high] level of technology. I think it is very hard to claim all that, but if anyone can it is an America’s Cup syndicate." He adds that for the team to succeed it is essential all these components must be fully developed.

How does he view the maturity of the America's Cup as a sports event? "In terms of wines, I think the America’s Cup is what you might call a 'sleeper'. It has huge potential. It has a huge quality and power and at the same time it has not yet been exploited at all. I think the approach of the teams and ACM as the organiser of the event has made a jump that is just gigantic in the last two years. Yet compared to the mature sports like soccer or Formula 1...if we say maybe Alinghi is one of the leading teams in sailing and I look at one of the leading teams in football like Real Madrid, Bayer Munich or Manchester United - comparable teams in their field - I would say we are roughly between five and 15 years behind depending upon where the team stands. So quite a long time."

He stresses that part of this is to do with how effectively 'the product' - ie the America's Cup or an America's Cup team - is sold. To illustrate this he points out that Team Alinghi at present have roughly five times the number of marketing and communications staff that BMW Oracle Racing have.

It also comes down to development of the individuals within the team, allowing characters to express themselves, to oversome a "natural shyness" and to allow them to help in the communication effort of the America's Cup and their team. "I think most of the top sailors we have in our team, while being outstanding sports personalities, are personalities that are a bit more introverted. I think a sailor, per se in the way they become a good sailor, is maybe a bit more of a quiet person rather than a loud person. They learn that if they overshadow all the others it will never work. So it is one of our rules to get these people closer to other people."

For example in Valencia recently when Team Alinghi held a function to celebrate the final engraving of the America's Cup, virtually the whole team was present, to assist in the communications drive. "I think if after this campaign there are a few 100,000 people more who say that thanks to what Alinghi has taught us or discussed or communicated with us, we have learned to better understand [America's Cup match racing] we will have succeeded."

Magyar adds that while the America's Cup has a lot going for it as a communications platform it does not have the immediate appeal of Formula 1 or football as a majority of adults have driven a car or have played football at some time in their lives, a tiny percentage in comparision have ever sailed. "America’s Cup match racing is difficult," he says. "That is why we have announced the programs - the Friends Program, the Alinghi Academy and the different elements - like the simulator, etc. It is not about teaching people how to sail it is about explaining how America’s Cup match racing works."

Considerable investment is being made in the highly sophisticated simulator that will be moored up alongside the Alinghi base and which members of public will be encouraged to try. "For us it is very important to communicate the spirit of openness, of being able to speak with other people, explaining what the America’s Cup is, to get the people to correlate. That is what we are trying to achieve for the next couple of years." In fact the exact opposite of the antiquated closed door, high secrecy approach the America's Cup is traditionally famous for.

Despite Team Alinghi having a whole roster of sponsors already on board - including main partners UBS and BT Infonet, and sub-sponsors Audemars Piguet, SGS, Nespresso, MSC Cruises and North Sails - running an America's Cup team is still not a profit-making venture and Magyar believes the possibility of this happening is some way off.

"I think that is at least one campaign too early. Maybe even two. I would say we have much more sponsorship and commercial income now than we had for the last campaign. We are very well funded with that money, but we still need Ernesto’s help to go through that. While Ernesto is the team head and the owner of the team we still very much believe that we take care of his money as if it was ours. So we deal as a business that is unfortunately still running a little in the red figures so we are very careful with that. It is not so that we can just spend because he is there. We have very good budget discipline. It is not like this is with all multi-millionaires. We stay in three star hotels and when we go on trips or regattas we fly economy class, and it is part of the modesty he as an owner puts himself in and that is how he is positioning the team.

"Our billionaire, if we can call him that, is as a very modest person, perhaps even a bit shy. He is a great leader, but I have never seen Ernesto boast with his wealth. I think that is what we as a team have learned from him - that you can be world class with a very high position, without being arrogant or bitchy. That is where the positioning for our program comes from."

Even if America's Cup campaigns do start moving into the black in years hence, Magyar believes that even the most successful business-savvy are unlikely to have the money making potential of Formula 1 teams or football clubs. "As an event it has a very high profile but due to the number of people that have access to sailing, it will in the end stay as an event that is watched, but not necessarily copied as a mass sport."

However he says that the profitability of the Cup will depend greatly upon what happens after 2007. "If Alinghi wins this Cup and they say 'let’s have the next one in the same kind of boats in 2009 here', then I believe half of the teams would be self-sustainable - same technology, small improvements, no class changes, short period of time to hire the staff. It could work very well. Then maybe someone else wins and they say ‘let’s forget about these huge ACC boats, let’s get something with 10 or eight sailors on board and do something else. Then it could really help you with that. So it is very difficult to say. A lot will also depend upon how successful is the whole community, all the challengers and ACM – and how they are able to position themselves in the future."