QUOTABLE: Ainslie looking beyond this summer
Published on April 16th, 2013
“Planning for any future America’s Cup beyond the current cycle is always difficult because of the nature of the event. He who wins makes the rules and while there is often plenty of good intent to maintain continuity for the next Cup cycle, it’s not something anyone can guarantee.
“This makes it very difficult when you are trying to develop good business relationships to bring sponsors on board. Clearly this is important to build commercial foundations for the team to secure key people in advance. In some ways this produces a tricky cycle to break as team backers want to see a strong team of key players in place.
“At some point people on both sides have to buy into the team vision and goals. This takes time and has occupied a good deal of the last six months, but I’m very happy with the way things have been going.” – Ben Ainslie, 5-time Olympic medalist, who is working now with Oracle Team USA while also developing his own team for the 35th America’s Cup