Big Promises for World Match Racing Tour

Robert Magnusson is the recently appointed CEO of Aston Harald Sports, which owns and organizes the World Match Racing Tour (WMRT). After completing its first season under their ownership, here he provides an update on the upcoming tour…

What is the vision for the World Match Racing Tour?
Our aim with the World Match Racing Tour over the next five years is to establish 10-12 WC (World Championship) events with three to four in Europe, three to four in North America, three to four in Australasia, and a Final event. For each WC level event, we will have two to three WT (World Tour level) events where the top two qualify in to the championship level event.

This would mean over forty events on the World Match Racing Tour in five years. And it would be great if all of these were able to offer prize money to the sailors. To make this happen one of the key ingredients is to find great locations for sailing with venues that can attract the audience and subsequently the sponsors.”

When will the 2016-17 WMRT schedule be announced?
The season will be announced very shortly but we’re looking to start in November in Asia, go to Malaysia in January, back to Fremantle in March, jump over to North America in April, Copenhagen in May, and Newport in June. We are planning to have the Finals in Marstrand once again. WMRT will have seven WC events and eighteen WT events in total. The format of the events will be tweaked but in all essence follow what we introduced in Fremantle this year.

What about the million dollar prize that was introduced for the 2016 season?
It was introduced to stay, so yes, the World Match Racing Tour will have the million dollar prize at the Final in Marstrand. The aim is to keep the prize purse for each event at a minimum of USD 200,000 as well. The more invested the venues are and the more sponsors we can bring in to the fun the better result for the prize purse. This will create a total prize purse on the tour of over USD 2,500,000 next season, which is money that goes directly to the sailors.

Who will get the Tour Cards for this season?
Seven of the ten tour cards have been decided, some based on results from last season and some on the World Match Race Rankings (Note: Tour cards guarantee entry to the tour events). Applications for the remaining three Tour Cards are still open. We will announce the season soon, very soon and the Tour Cards will be announced after that.