Vendee Globe - Seventh edition generates benefits never reached before

by Vendee Globe on 26 Apr 2013 Whilst the Vendee Globe awards ceremony approaches (May 11 in Les Sables d'Olonne with all the skippers) and will close this wonderful 2012-2013 Vendée Globe, the seventh edition of the round the world race, nonstop and unassisted generated benefits never reached before. Bruno Retailleau, President of the SAEM Vendée, presented them on Monday afternoon during a press conference at the Hotel du Department de La Roche-sur-Yon.

Exceptional intensity for the 2012-2013 Vendée Globe, which has generated records both at sea and on land. After 78 days, 2 hours and 16 minutes of navigation, François Gabart broke for the first time the mythical 80 days line, three hours later imitated by Armel Le Cléac'h for the smallest gap in history between the first two. Before killing the circumnavigation time record, the two skippers had improved different data: 24 hours distance record (534 miles) and Les Sables d'Olonne - Cape Leeuwin and Sables d'Olonne - Cape Horn lap for Gabart; Les Sables d'Olonne - Cape of Good Hope for Le Cléac'h. Arrived in eleventh position, only 26 days after the skipper of Macif, Alessandro Di Benedetto, he has 'improved' the difference between the winner and the last of the fleet (34 days between Auguin and Chabaud in 1997).

On land, the public's enthusiasm has never been that strong. During three weeks, the Sables d'Olonne village has attracted a million visitors and 300,000 were gathered in the Vendean harbor on November 10 to attend the start of the twenty skippers! During the race, 25,000 people visited the Race HQ in Paris Montparnasse. The day of the arrival of the first two, January 27, 150,000 spectators invaded Port Olona. In total, 300,000 people came to greet the sailors back in Vendee. Adding 175,000 visitors in the village between January 25 and February 10, the Vendée Globe captured a total audience of 1.8 million people!

Thanks to 14,000 articles, 12,500 radio subjects and 31,000 TV reports (290 hours), the Vendée Globe has generated an impressive media buzz. Thus, according to Kantar Sport, the event had a 6,000 UBM (Media Impact Unit) between November 2012 and February 2013, a figure that means that each French was potentially touched by 60 media which talked about the Vendée Globe. This is more than the Tour de France (4200 UBM) and Roland Garros (2500 UBM)!

The gross value of the advertising is around €180 million, only in France.

Despite a shorter race and a lower number of boats, the website has beaten all the records: 56M visits, 286M page viewed (this figure includes mobile apps) against 213M in 2008-2009, 9.3 million unique visitors, 30M videos viewed (16M in 2009), 4.2 million connections for the various live shows (departure, arrival, daily lives)...

The mobile application – which occupied the first place of the Apple Store free apps for a long time - has been downloaded 300,000 times on iPhone, iPad or Android, and generated 26% of the 286 million pages viewed.

77,000 fans attended the race on the Facebook page and have 19,000 followed it on Twitter where the Vendee Globe was a 'trending topic' (the most tweeted topic in France) during the press conference last September at the Mutualité in Paris, and during departure and arrival days.

About Virtual Regatta, 486,000 players were engaged in this virtual race, which represents 45% increase comparing to 2008 to 2009 (335,000).

65 broadcasters and four news agencies have issued images of the Vendée Globe in more than 190 countries, with 2.3 billion homes hit by the event! In total, the Vendée Globe has generated 738 hours of television show worldwide.

To celebrate this wonderful 2012-2013 Vendée Globe and greet once again the main players - the skippers - the organizers of the event wanted to set something up for the public. Thus, for the fourth time, the awards ceremony will be held on May 11, at 22:00, on the Sables d'Olonne beach with all the skippers.

About 100,000 people are expected to watch the 1h30 show, set up for the occasion. The best pictures and a 15 minutes retrospective film of the race will be shown on giant screens. And for the first time, images of the film 'En Solitaire' (released in November 2013) will be presented with the main actor François Cluzet.

The evening will end with a giant ten minutes firework.

Rendezvous on May 11 in Les Sables Vendee Globe website