How would you sum up season 4, which is about to come to an end?
It’s been great! We’ve managed to deliver more events than planned in our development plan, we’ve been in cities that have welcomed us beyond our expectations and we’ve had some fierce competition, with several different winners (five) and indecision right up to the end for the three teams that will contest the grand final.
► The aim has always been to have a homogenous fleet, but three teams are well behind: the United States (bought out during the season, which led to a change of crew), Germany and Switzerland. How can you make them more competitive?
It’s true that some teams are a bit stuck at the bottom of the rankings, even though they are led by some very good skippers, like Nathan Outteridge, who joined the Swiss boat during the season, or Erik Heil for Germany, who has an impressive track record in dinghy racing. There are two questions: the first is whether the rest of the crew is at the same level as the helmsman, and the second is linked to the fact that, apart from events, the teams don‘t have a boat at home to train on. So we’re trying to develop strategies to deal with this. Firstly, by giving more training time to those who need to catch up; secondly, we’ve developed an in-house simulator, which has recently been made available, to enable them to train when they’re not on the water. Finally, our aim is to have an extra F50 that could be used solely as a training platform between Grand Prix races.
► You have just announced the calendar for season 5. What are the prerequisites for hosting a Grand Prix?
The strategy is to go as far as possible to countries where we have teams. Then to find cities where we have good wind conditions but also where the topography lends itself to holding the event, so if possible in the heart of a city, with regattas close to the seaside. We also have cities who want to come back, so we’re trying to sign contracts for several years to establish a more stable calendar. The idea would be to have the final in the same place every season and to visit the same towns to create a habit among the fans. What’s more, we’re gradually moving back to a calendar that follows the calendar year. For season 5, we’re taking advantage of the Olympic Games and the America’s Cup to start later, in November, finishing in November 2025, then we’ll have a season from January to November with a one-month break in December.
“14 events is a really
a good result”
► Some countries, such as Canada which has expressed its disappointment or France, will not have a Grand Prix in season 5. Is it for financial reasons?
We had 14 events for twenty or so proposed cities. We had to make some difficult choices, with the aim of both strengthening existing teams by going to their home country and going to countries where we had the potential to develop new ones. For example, we’ve done two regattas in Italy, with the aim of having an Italian team, which should bear fruit, since that’s Jimmy Spithill’s objective, and we’re waiting to hear whether he’s going to join us. We’re also going to the Middle East because we’d like to eventually have a team from Dubai or Abu Dhabi. Then there are countries with teams that we’ve never been to before, like Germany and Switzerland, which we’ve chosen for season 5. The same goes for Brazil, which is launching a team and really wanted to have an event. So decisions had to be made. For Canada and France, it doesn’t mean that we’re cutting all ties, it‘s more of a goodbye than a farewell, a question of rotation. As for the second question, it’s true that the financial aspect is important. SailGP was created to develop a circuit that would be financially viable in the long term, so it’s true that when some towns fund us more than others, that plays into the decision.
► How much does an event cost?
It depends a bit on what you take into account, but if you don’t include TV production, we’re talking about between 3 and 4 million dollars (2.75 to 3.70 million euros) per event. Today, more than half of this is financed by the cities, whereas initially it was only SailGP that paid. We’ve also calculated that the return on investment for the cities is around 1 in 15, taking into account the economic impact and media value, so we have a really interesting product to offer.
► Two years ago, Andrew Thompson, SailGP’s head of sales and finance, announced an ambitious target of 20 events for season 5, are you satisfied with 14?
It’s still an objective to have around twenty events. But to reach that figure, we first need to reach a certain commercial maturity, because these events still cost us money, and then we need to rethink our logistics. We need to be able to get from A to B more quickly, and we’re currently working on the solution. In the meantime, 14 is a really good result.
“A franchise is worth at least
40 million dollars”
► Do you sell a lot of tickets?
It depends on the venues, it’s a lot harder to sell tickets in Dubai, where there’s no team, than in Halifax, where the public are real fans. At the moment, the highest number of tickets sold was for the Grand Prix in New Zealand last year, over 13,000 a day. Usually it’s between 2,000 and 5,000, which for a sailing event is unheard of, but compared to another sporting event, golf or tennis for example, it’s still small. Our objective over the next few years is to move towards higher stadium capacities.
► And are you able to generate revenue from TV rights?
Today, the strategy is above all to create the widest possible audience by providing a good product, rather than monetising it, and that’s the biggest challenge for SailGP. We’re still a young brand, launched five years ago, and we’re happy with the figures, but in this area we’re still working on an investment strategy, not yet on sales.
► Let’s finish with the teams. How many will be at the start of season 5?
The field is wide open. For a team to be able to race, it needs a boat, and we’re in the process of building the eleventh, but we don’t have much margin because it takes a lot of time and we’re constantly supplying replacement pieces when there are breakages. This means that if there were to be more candidate teams than boats, we would find ourselves, as with the cities, having to make trade-offs. When we started in 2019, the first six teams had been financed by SailGP, with the aim of selling them later. Today, of the ten, four are still owned by SailGP, at least in part, namely France, Canada, Spain and New Zealand. They are actively seeking either sponsorship or one or more owners to take them over financially. This means that if one or two teams want to join the circuit and are fully funded, SailGP could allocate them the boat of one of the four in question. There’s bound to be pressure on them, but at some point you have to cut the umbilical cord.
► How much does it cost to buy a franchise?
The price has gone up quite a bit since the beginning, and today it’s at least 40 million dollars (37 million euros).
► How much is SailGP still investing from its own funds?
I can’t really give a figure, but the aim is to be free of Larry Ellison’s investment by the end of season 5, so we’ll be financially balanced. When we started this first five-year cycle, we said to ourselves that maybe, after season 5, we’d end up managing just the league and not the teams, which would enable us to break even financially and concentrate on developing the quality of the event. It was super ambitious, a real gamble, but today we’re on the way to achieving it.
Photo: Simon Bruty for SailGP
