AC 2007 - what next for the Cup?

James Boyd looks ahead at the possibilities

I arrived in Auckland a while back with the firm belief that for purely selfish reasons I wanted the America's Cup to won by Alinghi. Ernesto Bertarelli is a cool 37 year old billionaire with the right intentions for the event and bringing the America's Cup to Europe within Easyjet striking distance for hacks wishing to visit from London, as well as the prospect of more European teams, the event's first ever return to our shores or simply for base reasons of fundamental change - all of these things, I felt, had to be a good thing for the event.

Now, I am not so sure.

The reaction to the America's Cup here in New Zealand is extraordinary. The most serious war in 50 years may be brewing, but from the pages of the New Zealand Herald here you wouldn't know it. Team New Zealand and either Schnack or Deano have been on the cover of the New Zealand Herald every day since I've been here. Barker's every move, every reaction is well documented and analysed to the nth degree and the Herald is not alone among the media here in being utterly obsessed with Cup fever.

During the Louis Vuitton Cup there was four hours of live television coverage every day, an anchorman's nightmare on days when racing is delayed and delayed and then finally cancelled when the wind fails to materialise. Now the Cup is on and the home team are in action live TV coverage has been upped to nine hours. It is then that commentators such as Peter Montgomery, a man who could carry out a lengthy analysis of the inside of a ping pong ball and make it sound interesting, earn their money.

And the media is not alone. Wearing anything which gives the impression you might have some affiliation with the water is enough for passers by, those in shops, sitting next to you in bars, buses or ferries to demand your take on the action. Can Team New Zealand win it back? Isn't Deano a nice boy? And the level of knowledge is extraordinary: Why did Team New Zealand chose the left and not the right up the first beat? The hula - a remarkable design innovation that extends the apparent waterline length while having no effect on the measured length, thereby allowing NZL82 to carry more sail area and have a deeper keel. Here in New Zealand everyone is an expert with a view.

GBR Challenge helm Andy Beadsworth has an anecdote about an off-day when he was driving back from visiting Rotorua. "I was in a GBR Challenge car and I stopped off in a garage in the middle of nowhere. There was a young mechanic there who not only recognised me, but he also knew about everything that was going on at GBR Challenge".

There is the much-hyped Kiwi animosity towards Coutts, Butterworth and the other defectors, flames no doubt breathed on by Team New Zealand's 'Loyal' campaign and certainly by the hard line nationalist Blackheart group, whose slogan is 'country before money'. The Daily Sail hasn't come across any wholesale malice towards Alinghi and their defector crew, although it will be interesting to monitor this when the Cup draws to a conclusion. Generally the feeling is that of the fan club of a major football team having their star striker transferred to a rival team.

Route du Rhum starts and Vendee Globe finishes are highly popular with the general public in France, but they are insignificant compared to level of popularity of the Cup in Auckland. So why is it such a big deal in New Zealand?

"Because we're an island national there has always been a following of sailing generally," explains top Cup commentator Peter Montgomery. "It evolved through the 1970s when New Zealand boats were being sailed by Peter Blake and Grant Dalton and Digby Taylor - with all the media coverage that started to give a high profile to sailing. And the way they were funded - they had to be pitched as a national effort, rather than what you have in Europe or north America where it tended to be wealthy individuals doing it themselves.

"People here knew very little about the America's Cup until KZ7," continues Montgomery, who has covered every America's Cup race New Zealand has taken part in since 5 October 1986. "After about 20 wins all of a sudden things took off. By Christmas TV NZ were covering it and it started feeding itself," he remembers.

Another reason is that New Zealand is a small country. About the same size as the UK it is home to 4 million people and so it is easier to make an impact. There was Peter Blake's winning Whitbread campaign in the late 1980s and Montgomery says that interest continued to grow with the big boat challenge in 1988 and following the move to San Diego in 1992 and the accompanying increase in TV coverage.

Then once Team New Zealand had won in 1995, local support went through the roof. "The parades had to be seen to be believed," says Montgomery of the reception Blake, Coutts and the New Zealand team received when they arrived home. On average roughly one third of the populations of the towns they visited turned out to pay their respects.

Aside from the sporting and nationalistic issues, New Zealand is a relatively small country and the effect of the America's Cup represents a huge income for the country. The figures are not available yet for this Cup, but according to Trevor Mallard New Zealand's Minister for the America's Cup (yes, they have a dedicated government minister it's such a big deal here) it was worth 640 million NZ$ to them last time. With larger teams spending more money and also the amount of tourism directly due to the Cup numbers are expected to be considerably up this time. "It appears to be bigger - certainly some of the early numbers are bigger and clearly the construction work done last time didn't have to be repeated this time," commented Mallard.

Mayor of Auckland John Banks says that the event also puts his city on the map internationally. "The press and photographers from all corners of the earth are here. They are our best ambassadors - they are writing articles and selling New Zealand to the rest of the world".

Marcus Hutchinson, head of the Louis Vuitton media team and a chief Cup pundit puts it into perspective. "Look at what it has done to a small city like Auckland, commercially, landscape wise – just a sailing event has done all that. You question whether the Olympic Games affected Altanta, Georgia as much as the America's Cup has influenced Auckland."

The downside of holding the Cup in Auckland again is that there is some sense that New Zealanders are getting weary of the event, the politics, the defections, the in-fighting between the old and new regimes at Team New Zealand. With budgets ever increasing and sums of around US$100 million being bandied around for the amounts spent by the bigger challenges, it is also thought that Team New Zealand may well have trouble maintaining an equal footing with the challengers - a scenario not unlike Ireland winning the Eurovision Song Content. It is rumoured that the New Zealand government may step it in to bankroll it, should Team New Zealand retain the Cup.

New Zealand is an inconvenient place to challenge for the Cup if you come from Europe or the States and there are likely to be less teams next time round should Team New Zealand win, particularly with a downturn in the global economy on its way and a possible world war. The base compounds from Team Dennis Conner through to GBR Challenge are also being turned into housing, so it is possible that more compound space would have to be reclaimed by building out from Prada.

If Team New Zealand win it is likely that the next event would take place in 2005.

So what if Alinghi win?

If Ernesto Bertarelli's team win, as looks probable now they are 3-0 up, then the America's Cup is likely to go through yet another evolution. Probably the most significant is that unless Mr Bertarelli has exceptionally gifted lawyers, the event cannot be held in landlocked Switzerland. The original Deed of Gift states that the racing will be held "on ocean water course on the sea, or on an arm of the sea, or one which combines both..." So the prospect of holding the America's Cup on Lake Geneva in unlimited 60ft catamarans is a remote one.

This will present the defenders with the unusual situation of the winning country not being able to host the event and reap its econimic benefits and at present one gets the impression that there are special envoys knocking at Mr Bertarelli's door from all over Europe, hoping to attract the America's Cup to their port.

The top contenders are believed to be Cascais, on the mouth of the Tago river near Lisbon in Portugal or Palma, but equally it might be a venue such as Sete or Marseilles in the south of France or somewhere in Italy. What Mr Bertarelli is looking for in a possible venue remains to be seen. There is certainly the need for a suitable Halsey Street-type space to house the team compounds. There needs to be good racing conditions - racing on the Atlantic coast could provide more lively conditions than the more typical thermal-style breezes you get in the Med. There is also a need to maintain the event's status - it is hard to imagine the likes of Prada returning if the next America's Cup is being held in a European equivalent of Skegness. Another suggestion has been holding each stage of the challenger series in a different venue.

It should be remembered that if Alinghi win it is entirely up to them to create the format for the next event. "There are no givens," stresses Marcus Hutchinson. "You win the Cup - you write the rules."

Generally the indications are that Alinghi may wish to make the event less elitist and more user friendly for both the public and the competing teams. They have attempted the former this time round with their impressive visitors centre that strongly contrasts the closed door high security policies maintained by other teams - most notably by Team New Zealand.

There are other possibilities such as Alinghi changing the type of boat. The feeling is that there is unlikely to be a radical change in the type of boat, but this is little more than a hunch. There are other rumours circulating that the current rules governing the nationalities of the teams may be dropped along with those governing the purchase of assets from other teams. It has been suggested that being able to buy boats from other teams - but not the design or engineering information accompanying the boats - has been one of the main reasons for the loss of rigs and keels in this class.

If the America's Cup comes to Europe then there is also likely to be more competitors. It is anticipated the line-up could include:
- 4-6 from Italy - although Prada have indicated that they will not be among them if the event comes to Europe
- two or three French campaigns - Le Defi/K Yachting
- the UK (GBR Challenge/de Savary)
- Scandinavia (it is unlikely Victory Challenge will happen again following the death of Jan Stenbeck, but Jesper Bank is said to be looking for money),
- Germany - illbruck
- possibly three from the States - Oracle, Team Dennis Conner, OneWorld
- possibly one from Australia (it is hard to imagine all Team New Zealand's assets going to waste).

It is unlikely that the format for the next America's Cup will be announced until later this year if Alinghi win.

So there are many pros from the Cup coming to Europe, but what an event in Europe will lack is the incredible support and enthusiasm of the host country compared to what are used to in New Zealand - particularly if the host country is not even that of the defender. It will not be the equivalent of a 'home' match.