SailGP: Is this fashion’s fastest billboard?

You can either speak something into truth, or it already is true. Not always easy to tell, particularly when the speaker has a vested interest. Here is what’s being said at Women’s Wear Daily (WWD) Apparel Retail CEO Summit:

“SailGP is the fastest-growing emerging sport in history,” Assia Grazioli Venier, cofounder of The Muse Sport consortium that acquired the Red Bull Italy SailGP Team last May, told WWD’s Apparel and Retail CEO Summit last month.

“This has been one of the most extraordinary things in my career that I’ve seen in terms of operational excellence, from content to digital to what happens at these events,” she said. “Also, because it is fueled by the wind as opposed to gas guzzling, it represents a lot of the values that we know are important to today’s consumer.” – Full report

SailGP information – Abu Dhabi event – YouTube

Season 5 Leaderboard (after 11 of 12 events)
1. Great Britain – Dylan Fletcher, 85 points
2. New Zealand – Peter Burling, 82 points
3. Australia – Tom Slingsby, 80 points
4. Spain – Diego Botin, 76 points
5. France – Quintin Delapierre, 61 points*
6. Canada – Giles Scott, 48 points
7. Denmark – Nicolai Sehested, 38 points**
8. Switzerland – Sebastien Schneiter, 38 points
9. Germany – Erik Heil, 31 points**
10. Italy – Ruggero Tita, 22 points
11. Brazil – Martine Grael, 16 points**
12. United States – Taylor Canfield, -4 points**
* France was awarded points for the first two events as their F50 was not available
**Teams receive season penalty points for incidents during practice or racing

Season 5 Schedule – 14 events*
2024
November 23-24 – Dubai, UAE

2025
January 18-19 – Auckland, New Zealand
February 8-9 – Sydney, Australia
March 15-16 – Los Angeles, USA
March 22-23 – San Francisco, USA
May 3-4 – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
June 7-8 – New York City, USA
July 19-20 – Portsmouth, Great Britain
August 16-17 – Sassnitz, Germany
September 6-7 – Taranto, Italy
September 12-13 – Saint-Tropez, France
September 20-21 – Geneva, Switzerland
October 4-5 – Andalucía – Cádiz, Spain
November 7-8 – Middle East
November 29-30 – Grand Final – Abu Dhabi, UAE
* The season began with 14 events but Tranto was replaced with Saint-Tropez, while Rio and Middle East were cancelled.

Format for Season 5:
• Teams compete in identical F50 catamarans.
• Each event runs across two days.
• Five qualifying fleet races of approximately 15 minutes may be scheduled for each regatta.
• The top three teams from qualifying advance to a final race to be crowned event champion. The season ends with the Grand Final, which includes the Championship Final Race for the top three teams in the season standing. The top team on points ahead of the three-boat Championship Final will get a monetary award.
• The league still owns the New Zealand and Spain teams and are looking at how they can bring new investment into them.

Prize money:
Over the course of the 2025 Season, a total of $12M USD is up for grabs – the largest prize purse in the sport of sailing. $9.6M has been doled out so far, with $2M up for grabs to the Grand Final winner, and $800,000 available to the top-three placed teams in the Abu Dhabi event final. So far this season, Emirates GBR top the prize money leaderboard with $2M in the bank, followed by the Black Foils with $1.76M. The BONDS Flying Roos and Los Gallos have each secured $1.2M.

For competition documents, click here.

Established in 2018, SailGP seeks to be an annual, global sports league featuring fan-centric inshore racing among national teams in some of the iconic harbors around the globe.

Source: SailGP