Swedish mastermind - part 2

Atlant's Richard Brisius on the Volvo Ocean Race and why sailing sponsorship is so big in Sweden

Read part one of this interview here

Atlant’s existence comes at a time when sailing sponsorship and public awareness in the sport is at an all time high in Sweden. Brisius and Salén have both witnessed its growth with interest. “In 1989-90 I sailed home on The Card into Sweden and we came into Gothenberg and there were 50 people waiting and 25 of them were drunks as we came into that particular part of the dock… And then when we came in with EF there were 1,000s and 1,000s of people. So it has grasped the audience in this country.”

Crucial to this has been looking after rather than exploiting sponsors. “The way we work is that we try to integrate people from the sponsoring companies as much as possible because that way they learn and they get involved and the projects get much better,” says Brisius. “For example with Assa Abloy, they met a few skipper candidates for instance - not that they had to decide, but it was important for them to be involved with the process. Nokia are involved in the same way with the Oops Cup.”

From a business point of view the increased popularity in the sport has also changed their relationship with sponsors. “An important step between the 1997/8 Whitbread and the last Volvo Ocean Race was that we had stock-listed companies coming in. Before it was mostly private entrepreneurs, like EF was owned by a billionaire. But now it is accepted among companies like Volvo and Assa Abloy that sailing is now a preferred sport to sponsor and it comes into many sponsoring policies.”

Whether sailing will continue to ride the crest of this particular wave of corporate sponsorship in Sweden is hard to judge. Brisius worries it may be a passing fad.
“In Sweden our stars are Magnus Olsen and Roger Nilson and they inspired many including myself to start with this and if you look in the last Volvo ocean Race there may have been one new Swede in the race - Jonas Wackenhuth on djuice [there was also Star champion Freddie Loof]. So I think it is peaking here. But now for instance we go out and meet a lot of companies and we meet very few companies in Sweden. We move around a lot. But what is very fun for us is that this is the first year that companies call us.”

Close to Brisius’ heart is the Volvo Ocean Race, but at present he is worried it will still cost too much. “From what I have seen so far, it looks like it will be a fun boat to sail and exciting for a monohull but for the next event I think it will be very expensive. I don’t know the rule yet, so it is hard to work out a budget but I heard someone who was looking for money was asking companies for $20 million and I think that is what we would look for.” (Glenn Bourke and Andy Hindley reckon that $15 million will be top whack for a VO70 campaign).

Brisius says that they won’t start looking for money until the rule is finally announced (which is taking place this coming Monday). Even then he is not entirely convinced that $20 million for a Volvo Ocean Race campaign represents good value for a sponsor. “At the end of the last race it seemed to be on a lower platform than before so we said, ‘okay we’ll stand by and see what goes on and we’ll spend our time in other ways’ which we felt would be more efficient rather than going out looking for money for something which we couldn’t put our hands on our hearts and say ‘go into this – it will be fantastic’ – which is what you need to do to get $20 million.”

For the last race the Assa Abloy war chest, depending upon what you include in it, was around $12 million, says Brisius. The problem with looking for more money is that it further narrows down the number of companies with that kind of budget.

“It can be as hard to get $100,000 as it is to get $10 million, but the problem is that the higher you go with the budget the fewer companies there are who can afford it. So the prospect list you have goes down - for every $5 million you increase the budget you lose 25% of your prospect list.”

Brisius is also worried by the timing – there are just two years left to get a complete campaign sponsored and put together. He believes that Volvo should have stuck with the VO60 for this race, maybe even have gone one design, and then during the next race announced the format and new class of boat for 2009 giving syndicates more time to raise money and get their acts together. His reasons for going one design are for cost. “There is a huge difference racing one designs, but in these times when it is hard to find money it is less costly and that is the one goal that was set out so clearly - to have lower budgets to increase the number of participants.”

Regarding the conflict between the Volvo Ocean Race and Bruno Peyron’s round the world races in France, he believes in an ideal world there should just be one good event. Volvo is a good company and an ideal sponsor, I like the vision of The Racebut the concept is very boat related. The one good event should be a combination of the good qualities of The Race and Volvo Ocean Race.

Brisius like everyone else is watching to see how successful the new format and boat for the Volvo Ocean Race will be and what will become of The Race now that most of the potential competitors in it are making Jules Verne Trophy attempts this winter.