America’s Cup backers seek wider following

Photo © Thierry Martinez/Alinghi

Sourced from msnbc.msn.com

VALENCIA, Spain - For 150 years America’s Cup has existed on the fringe of athletics. A sport for the rich. But, corporations have come to the game, dumping in hundreds of millions of sponsorship dollars, and they want their investment to pay off.
Tell a cup athlete that his beloved sport is often perceived as an elitist activity for billionaires and you’ll likely get this:
“You know I take issue with that from a sporting standpoint. Everybody can get a used sailboat and out to the beach and enjoy themselves,” said Alinghi helmsman, Ed Baird.
Thus, the marketing dilemma for this sport. How to take sailing from the fringe to the mainstream.
“That is an interesting question because there’s quite a lot of debate in the sailing world as to what is the right level,” said Seahorse magazine editor, Andrew Hurst.. And what I would say is this corporate arena, with all the money that comes in. To me, this is not really living on the back of mainstream marketingIn other words, billionaire sailors love to entertain at their Spanish regattas, but there isn’t an international broadcast deal and even the most rabid sports fans would have great difficulty distinguishing between a keep and a spinnaker, a grinder and a downwind trimmer.

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