The America’s Cup that could have been New Zealand’s

Tuesday, 22 October 2024

Stuff is the official broadcast partner of the America's Cup 2024.

ANALYSIS: No matter what, there’s always the confetti canons, the champagne spray and the big speeches. Many speeches.

However the success of the 37th America’s Cup in Barcelona is beyond question.

The Cup itself grew as a result of a lucrative hosting deal funded by Barcelona’s public and private sectors, with the inaugural women’s cup and the return of the youth cup.

Six teams made it not the biggest-ever, but the biggest-equal since 2007 in Valencia. The challenger final between INEOS Britannia and Luna Rossa was one of the best, and the Cup Match had races closer than the 7-2 score line might suggest.

The commercial possibilities of staging the 37th in a major European city, helped fund the first-ever Esports regatta - taken away by two Auckland teenagers.

Barcelona put on a colourful event on the ground, with fan-zones and big screens in city and beach spots, and locals were wooed with a spectacular beach-front opening ceremony that drew tens of thousands.

It was a European-scale event, for sailing at least.

It is worth remembering why the 37th Cup was held in Barcelona, rather than again in Auckland, where Team New Zealand successfully defended in 2021.

Needing a hosting fee big enough to provide funds for a sailing campaign that was up against at least three teams with billionaires behind them.

Auckland Council and the government offered a deal nominally worth $99 million, with $30 million towards the event but nothing for the team.

The 2021 campaign had not been the happiest. A rift between the event partners, the Government’s Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and the defender’s event company ACE, soured to the point of legal action being prepared by Team New Zealand.

MBIE, without informing its event partner, had launched a forensic investigation into the event’s accounts and spending, based on allegations made by contractors within ACE, which were later found without substance.

Barcelona was an irresistible alternative. A hurried hosting bid led initially by the city’s private sector, rustled up a $45 million sponsorship underwrite, inside three weeks.

Three layers of government, city, region and national, signed up, and a cash sum reported at around $130 million was paid, to split between the event and the team.

The rest is history. Team New Zealand disposed of the billionaire’s challenges, secured the Cup for a third consecutive time, and is now looking ahead to further build.

There seems little prospect of a return to New Zealand, for an event far bigger than when it was last hosted - admittedly during the border closures of Covid-19.

Dalton has no intention of asking for a deal. The Minister of Sport and Recreation Chris Bishop has said only that the government is “open to a discussion”, but it is one Dalton won’t initiate.

The last Prime Minister to embrace the America’s Cup, and Team New Zealand’s part in it, was Helen Clark, whose government was a team sponsor for 2007, and signed a deal for 2013 delivered (reluctantly) by the John Key National-led government.

Clark is now the team’s patron, and was blunt about what would have happened if the team had accepted the New Zealand offer for 2024.

“They probably could have hosted but it would have been a losing bid,” said Clark.

A blame game is pointless. Team New Zealand is an enterprise mostly-funded by foreign sponsors, and owning the cup event is its greatest asset.

The Cup has continued to grow without New Zealand public money. Even the big presence of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei and the iwi’s waka and cultural group, has been privately funded by the event and the iwi itself.

If hosting it a step too far for New Zealand, there is always the option of investing in promotion of the country and its industry in offshore locations, as the Clark government did in 2007.

“That's an image we need out there so that we can get serious investment into our economy and the really high value areas,” Clark told Stuff.

There’s more than one way for New Zealand to benefit from the America’s Cup.