James Griffin: A virtual money-saver

James Griffin. Photo / Dean Purcell

Thirty-six million dollars. You could buy a lot with that sort of cash. You could buy houses and cars and all manner of luxury items you didn't really need.

Like a diamond-encrusted iPad or your own chocolate factory or a pet dinosaur. Or, if you're feeling really crazy, you could blow the lot on a 20 per cent share in an America's Cup syndicate.

I've never really got the whole America's Cup thing. I mean, I know that New Zealand is a nation of sailors and that we all have salt water running through our veins, but the sort of sailing I like - where it's just nice to get out on the water and the biggest tactical decision of the day is when to pour the first G&T - is about as far away from the Formula 1 boys of Team New Zealand as it is possible to get. I guess I'm more about the spirit of sailing than the actual sailing bit of sailing.

I wonder what the Government actually gets for their $36 million. Does Winz get naming rights to one of the hulls of the catamaran? And what if the boat tries to spontaneously sink like our yacht did last time we defended the Cup - what sort of political message will that send for all that money? Still, if $36 million buys us, the People, only 20 per cent of the budget, then that puts the whole budget, by my rudimentary reckoning, somewhere in the $180 million range. So we can only rejoice that the Government didn't go for naming rights on both hulls, otherwise there would be primary schools closing up and down the country.

$180 million. Now that is a lot of money to spend on a yachting regatta. That, in my humble opinion, is way too much money to spend on just about anything. Even Peter Jackson would be hard pressed to spend that amount of money. Okay, maybe not, but my point remains that no sporting event should ever cost that much.

Luckily a couple of friends of mine have come up with a much cheaper way of staging the America's Cup without compromising the excitement of yacht match-racing. The Grey-Sye Method starts with two givens: a) that America's Cup yachts are designed and tested using computers; and b) that if it weren't for the computer graphics on television, the America's Cup would suck monumentally as a spectator experience - and then it cuts out everything in-between.

Thus, under the Grey-Sye America's Cup rules, no humans will be required beyond those who do stuff with com-puters. No boats will actually be built and all racing will be done virtually, on virtual courses, in virtual weather conditions, in front of fleets of virtual spectator boats. By never actually having to spend money on anything real, heaps and heaps of millions of dollars must surely be saved.

And having been out on the water to watch America's Cup racing, back in the good old days when it was New Zealand's Cup, I know for a fact that Grey and Sye are on to something here.

Sure, it was sort of awesome watching the boats in their pre-start manoeuvring, but once they actually started sailing up and down the course the ferry we were on became a floating sports bar as everyone gave up on the dots in the distance and watched the computer-generated yachts on the TV instead.

The added bonus of the Grey-Sye America's Cup model is that none of the special magic that makes the America's Cup the proud sporting event it is need be lost just because it isn't staged in the real world. In and around the virtual racing, virtual arrogant billionaires will still be able to wage virtual dick-measuring competitions, aided by teams of virtual lawyers in virtual courts all over the internet.

In fact, in many ways making everything virtual will actually bring it closer to the real world. Genius.

Of course, the one potential downside is that the whole competition could get hacked by non-yachties and the America's Cup could end up in the hands of some 13-year-old hacker from New Jersey, via routers in India, the Ukraine and Lagos. But not to worry, because we can send in our own virtual Maori activist to virtually smash up his virtual Cup with a virtual sledgehammer - teach him some old school Kiwi-style retribution.

Seriously, I think the Grey-Sye plan has got a lot going for it. And even if we have to employ thousands of computer geeks to design and race our winning virtual yacht, there is no way the Government will have to kick in anywhere near $36 million - because not even a navy of geeks can drink that much Red Bull.