Extreme Sailing Series: Keeping the commercial model afloat

The Extreme Sailing Series is in its ninth season, with this year’s eight event tour traveling through Asia, Europe, and Australia. This successful, sponsor-driven circuit launched the ‘stadium’ short-course racing format, providing spectators, supporters and media easy access to the competition.

Mark Turner, Executive Chairman of OC Sport, the creator and organizer of the Extreme Sailing Series, shares what it takes to keep this commercial model afloat…

What were the new challenges this year?

Well, being global and annual, we always have some challenges on the venue side due to big picture, bigger than us, geopolitical issues. Wars, riots, politics, economic crises are present each year somewhere, and we aren’t immune to the effects of them! That comes with the territory of running an annual series, and a very global one.

The challenges don’t always come from where you expect either – civil disturbances in Rio in 2013 really caught us out for example – and forced us to move that event to another city very late on. We had to cancel Istanbul at the last minute in 2013 for similar reasons. So for sure, managing the venue deals and planning ahead on that is always the biggest challenge.

Then of course, as we allowed 2014 to be a bigger year than normal on the teams front, and bigger than our 8 boat format is really made for, managing team entries for 2015 was always going to throw in some pressure. Just like after 2011 when we had the America’s Cup teams turn up too, we knew that the likes of Team New Zealand were only there for one year. However many times you tell everyone that, you still get the question about it being a problem the following year.

Just like 2011 we decided to let them in, and just like 2012 we have a good fleet the following year as well – but yes not with the same number of big star names/teams. As expected. At the end of the day we all know the America’s Cup model isn’t a commercially sustainable one (it’s a sustainable event of course, the money is always there , but not in a sponsorship funding only way) – and so actually to try to hold any other event in that same place is pretty hard as well.

Going in to 2015 we have the kind of teams that have made the event what it is – good brands like Red Bull and SAP supporting top level sailors, who have made long term commitments and have been around for many seasons already. It’s also given us a chance to bring in newer younger teams that would otherwise struggle to compete with the AC guys. Our ideal teams are the ones like SAP that re-committed for a few years recently, have top sailors onboard, activate around their partnership in both B2B and consumer facing spaces, and are real professionals.

How do you maintain the commercial platform amid a sailing contest?

Diversification of revenues is key, and as above, it’s not about chasing the one-off stars – it’s about building long term stakeholders – be that venues, teams, sponsors. In running such a global event, you know you will run in to major issues each year with a venue or a sponsor. You have to be able to weather those shocks. It’s not easy!

The task is definitely harder than most people on the team side realize that is for sure – and that applies to any of the major events in the sport. There is always more money in sailing on the team side, much more. It’s the case in pretty well every format of professional sailing – yet somehow many sailors or teams think the event organizers are taking advantage. As we work on both team and event side in our sport at OC, I can assure you making the event side add up is the biggest challenge of all.

In 2014, there were a number of high profile America’s Cup teams competing, but this year you lack the big names. How does that impact the “product”?

When you step out of the sailing world, there are not many ‘high profile’ names that mean much to the media or audiences in the places we go. Ben Ainslie is probably the better known sailor from last year for example, but even he is relatively unknown beyond the sailing world and the UK where of course his profile is very high and positive right now.

So when it comes to selling the product, the fact we still have a lineup full of Olympic medalists and world champions, is quite often enough to open the conversation with broadcasters, sponsors, etc. And we have to be realistic, a commercially funded event can’t actually afford to become an event with just high profile names – as because of the distortions to salaries that the America’s Cup creates, the team budgets simply wouldn’t be viable in a setup where every dollars needs to provide a return.

What else occurs at the events beyond the sailing?

Like any event it has to be a package of things – there are different go buttons for VIPs and public, and culturally every city is different too. For sure it’s an area we also need to develop further – but our most successful public events are like in Cardiff where we combined until now with a harbour festival, and Porto where we were so down town that we were pretty well merged with all the bars and restaurants!

In the end, we need a good public turnout to make everything else make sense and feel right – but equally we have many partners of the event or the teams that are aiming to entertain a smaller group of specific clients. We need to cater for both.

ESS website: http://www.extremesailingseries.com