Am Cup - Team NZ's Dalton sets record straight
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com/NZ 9 Dec 2017 14:59 PST
10 December 2017
Emirates Team New Zealand CEO, Grant Dalton has broken the team's silence over the Event Fee being negotiated with the Auckland Council and NZ Government to stage the 2021 America's Cup in Auckland.
The lead front-page story in the Sunday Star Times, by Duncan Johnstone, reinforces many of the points made by Sail-World.com earlier this week. click here for full Sail-World story
While not elaborating on the amount sought for the Event Free, Dalton says that it is not a fraction of the $116million - which is at the extreme end of figures bandied about with source in the New Zealand sports and general media.
Dalton also confirms that the America's Cup Regatta will be made available on free to air platforms - a lead in to the philosophy to maximise the viewing audience for the America's Cup - and putting an end to the restrictive viewing practices adopted for the last America's Cup, which irked Cup fans.
He also revealed that in line with standard America's Cup event organisation practice an event and marketing management entity had been formed as was done in 2007 with America's Cup Management (ACM) and in 2013 and 2017 with America's Cup Events Management (ACEA). The companies held the rights to the licencing of the properties known as the "Cup Marks" owned by New York registered America's Cup Properties Inc (ACPI) and assigned to the current Defender of the America's Cup, known as the America's Cup Trustee.
Duncan Johnstone reports:
A separate company has already been formed to run the regattas, called America's Cup Events Ltd. It's a replica of the America's Cup Events Authority that ran the last two regattas and received considerable payments to do so – $30m from San Francisco and $80m by Bermuda.
The event fee will only cover partial costs of the Auckland extravaganza with Team New Zealand under pressure to find significant sponsorship to top it up.
"It's not a fee to host an event, an appearance fee, a royalty or anything like that. It's to run the actual event and all the logistics," Dalton insists.
He slaps down three A3 sheets of paper stacked with lines of print on them smaller than you'll find in your phonebook. They are the workings of a budget. The devil is in the detail – and there's plenty of it.
There's a need for 26 chase boats for race course perimeter control, umpiring, and health and safety. There are ten cameras planned for every America's Cup boat and other substantial broadcast costs. Resource consent applications, portaloos, security, insurance, big screens, entertainment, traffic management, fencing, waste collection, a media centre... the list goes on and on.
"You think of anything that happens in an event, and it's in our budget to run this thing.
"It's a golden opportunity to do this event well and get behind it. But to suggest Team New Zealand is trying to extort money out of the government for itself is just trying to cause trouble for no reason."
Broadcasting is key with Team New Zealand determined to return the regatta to free-to-air TV and a state of the art presentation for the digital age. It is a significant factor in the event fee makeup.
"One of our underlying beliefs is that all of New Zealand and anywhere else should have easy access to footage. In our heart we want everyone to be able to watch it."
Dalton won't be drawn on the actual cost of the final budget at this stage but scoffs at the figure of $116m that has been prominent in some of the misinformation doing the rounds.
"That's a farcical figure. It's not even a fraction of that and running the whole event from A to Z would never even cost a fraction of that."
Team New Zealand won't be seeking financial support from the government for their actual sailing programme from here after being handed $36m for the 2013 America's Cup in San Francisco and $5m bridging funds for both the Bermuda and current Auckland campaigns.
For the full story click here.
The Sunday Herald also runs a major story on Emirates Team New Zealand and the Auckland hosting but without any useful comment by the team, and it repeats a lot of the misinformation that has been swirling around the Auckland media and airwaves from prominent politicians and others.
Also "revealed" in the NZ Herald is a story from French team designer Juan Kouyoumdjian regarding the daggerboard issues experienced by Emirates Team New Zealand ahead and during the 35th America's Cup. The issues were revealed by Russell Coutts, CEO of ACEA and Oracle Team USA in social media at the end of March 2017, while Emirates Team NZ was still sailing in New Zealand. Dalton expanded on the issues on June 26, 2017, after Emirates Team New Zealand had won the Cup, and the issues were also explained further in "Lone Wolf - how Emirates Team New Zealand stunned the World" - New Zealand's largest selling sports book for 2017. It is difficult to understand why this issue should suddenly be a new story some nine months later.
America's Cup Events Limited (ACE) is a company spun-out Team New Zealand AC35 Challenge Limited first registered in 2013 and renamed America's Cup Events Ltd at the end of November 2017.
Emirates Team New Zealand operates under a separate company Team New Zealand Ltd, and has the same four directors as ACE plus CEO Grant Dalton. The shareholding of both companies is evenly split between Sir Stephen Tindall and commercial lawyer Greg Horton.
It is not clear for which functions ACE will have the responsibility - in 2013 and 2017 the functions on the water were handled by a Regatta Director and America's Cup Regatta Management - which in 2017 was established as being independent of ACEA and funded by the teams.
The Protocol for the 36th America's Cup establishes the position of a Regatta Director, who is also independent but appointed by COR/D (Challenger of Record and Defender) who has eight functions set out in the Protocol, but related only to on the water racing activities and functions.
The Challenger of Record, Circolo della Vela Sicilia, is responsible for the organisation of the Challenger Selection Series (Prada Cup). Approximately 75% of the US$2million entry fee paid by the Challengers is placed in a separate bank account in the name of the Challenger of Record to cover regatta operational costs.
It is not clear at this stage as to how ACE will operate. ACEA was under the control of a CEO (Russell Coutts) and with an America's Cup Commissioner appointed - primarily a marketing and event management role, including TV rights allocation. London based Influence Sports & Media has been appointed "as the exclusive commercial agency to assist in its Defence of the 36th America’s Cup.
"We will work closely with Emirates Team New Zealand and its partners, the Challenger of Record, Luna Rossa Challenge, and Prada, the Presenting Sponsor of the 36th America’s Cup providing commercial services including partner sales, partner management, media rights and implementation for the 36th America’s Cup Defence.
"The agency team will be led by Alistair Watkins, Founder and Managing Director of Influence Sports & Media, Stephen Nuttall, former Director at Google / YouTube and Ekrem Sami, previously CEO at McLaren Marketing."
The final decision on options for the 36th America's Cup was expected to be made at an Auckland Council Meeting this Thursday. However according to one of the protest groups who seem to have a very cosy relationship with Labour Party functionaries at coalition government and local government levels has said in the weekend papers that due to financial considerations that a final decision may not be made on Thursday.
On the sailing side of the America's Cup, two teams are believed proceeding towards building Surrogate America's Cup class yachts. There is no limit to the number of surrogates that can be built, however teams are limited to two AC75's the first of which can be launched after March 31, 2019.