Barcelona defends the America’s Cup as a fan magnet

Friday, 11 October 2024

Protestors say the America's Cup is hurting the city but proponents say the benefits are already visible.

Stuff is the official broadcast partner of the America's Cup 2024. Watch all races live on stuff.co.nz/americascup, as well as on Three and ThreeNow.

Barcelona’s city council has defended the crowd-drawing power of the America’s Cup, saying 1.6 million people have encountered the event in the city since it began.

The council said the count included people who had passed through the downtown Race Village and two other fan zones, plus Port Olympic where the Youth and Women’s Cup teams are based.

The release of numbers, followed criticism by opponents of the city’s hosting, claiming the visitor impacts had been exaggerated, as had the potential television audiences.

The council said the figures excluded people attending private functions or watching from informal public spaces, such as the beaches looking out onto the race course.

Newspaper El Pais reported council officials had said the counting happened only during the opening hours of the official fan areas, and only on race days.

The figures include people who have repeatedly visited areas.

The protest movement No Copa America has run a series of public demonstrations against public money going towards the event.

The protest group No Copa America at the Catalan Parliament, opposing the city's hosting of the America's Cup

The network of community groups has sought the support of a small left-wing party in the regional government, and others, to call for an investigation into the case for public funding, based on work by an activist monthly magazine Directa.

“Our position is that this America's Cup has been sold to the politicians here in Catalonia as something great and that the only thing that it's doing is extracting money from the (public) administrations and doesn't have an economic impact in the city,” NCA spokesman Albert Valencia told Stuff.

Former mayor Ada Collau, who headed a coalition of parties that agreed in 2022 to host the event, quit politics in September and said “At this point I think it is better to admit the mistake.”

However in an interview with Stuff, Daniel Puig - the wealthy businessman who worked to secure the event to counter an economic slump - said there had been a host of benefits, both tangible and intangible.

Daniel Puig, who started efforts to get a Barcelona bid for the America's Cup

A group of private business leaders raised nearly $45 million, in a couple of weeks to top-up the bid.

Puig said a range of upgrades had been advanced, such as turning the run-down and dangerous Port Olympic marina into a base for marine start-up companies and sailing programmes.

“We're not going to change the world in two days, right? But, I think that the morale of the people has completely changed (due to the Cup),” Puig told Stuff.

Barcelona Tourism said that the figure of 2.5 million visitors, which critics said had not been achieved, was not about foreign visitors coming to the city.

The chief executive Mateu Hernandez told Stuff, this also included locals who might cross town to watch some racing from the beaches.