America's Cup: Emirates Team NZ wins apology and settlement over 2021 Cup row.
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com/NZ 29 Jun 2025 09:58 PDT
Emirates Team NZ racing in the 36th America's Cup - Day 6 - March 16, 2021, Course C © Richard Gladwell / Sail-World.com / nz
New Zealand website, Newsroom.co.nz has obtained the confidential settlement reached between the America's Cup team Emirates Team New Zealand and their formerly contracted Event Managers, Mayo & Calder, and others associated with the company.
Todd Niall, a veteran correspondent who has covered six America's Cup cycles, obtained a copy of the confidential statement reached between the parties in March 2025.
One of several stories published at the time in Sail-World.com was written to provide some balance to the stories that were being published in the NZ Herald, and repeated elsewhere in the mainstream media including primetime TV news.
The journalist covering the story for NZ Herald was their then Wellington based business and political editor, Hamish Rutherford, who consistent with normal journalistic practice, did not reveal the sources of his information but did quote some official statemnents including those from Iain Cossar, then general manager tourism for MBIE. It would appear that the leaked information came from governmental sources. In April 2022 Rutherford left NZ Herald to become Prime Minister's Chief Press Secretary, the prime role in political media circles, leaving 10 months after the Coalition Government was formed.
Those leaked reports, now proved to be completely incorrect, caused the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) to suspend payments to America's Cup Hosting Agreement, as reported by Sail-World in July 2020 and by NZ Herald.
At one juncture NZ Herald ran a one-and-a-half-page story including pen-portraits of the key players involved. This story contains several other links to NZ Herald's reporting of the matter at the time.
It was also MBIE who commissioned the Economic Impact and Benefit report following the 2021 America's Cup hosting, which adopted the curious practice of including non-Cup related works, such as scheduled public works long planned for the area, showing the event running at a massive loss. The report made only passing reference to the impact of COVID, and the fact that draconian immigration restrictions in place at the time, effectively precluded any inbound spectators or sailing media to the event.
Sail-World's analysis of the MBIE report.
The report made the hosting of the 2024 America's Cup a non-starter.
The same MBIE commissioned report, with curious timing, kept popping up at key moments as other international venues were negotiating with the Cup Defenders over hosting of the 2024 event.
The full report on the settlement, published on June 28, 2025, written by Todd Niall can be read here.