Sailing: Sail GP eyes NBA-style conference system, expansion and commits to New Zealand

Sail GP chief executive Russell Coutts outlined plans for the series' future. Photo / photosport.nz

Sixteen teams and an NBA-style system with a finals series are parts of Sir Russell Coutts' vision for expanding the Sail GP F50 foiling catamaran series.

The high-octane series recently began its third season with the opening event raced in Bermuda last month.

Coutts, chief executive of the Larry Ellison-backed series, talked to the Herald at the launch of Sail GP technologies in Warkworth. The state-of-the-art facility aims to lead the way in high performance, sustainable design and applied technologies.

There are 10 events on this season's calendar, with the next in Chicago later this month. But there's a big gap between the eighth event in Singapore in January and the ninth in Christchurch in March. Sydney, which has staged races the last two years, is expected to be added to what would become an 11-round season.

"We will have an 11-event calendar season and our ultimate plan is to build it out to 20-plus events a year," Coutts said. "So, it would be a lot like some of the motor-racing products that have essentially one event every two weeks."

Coutts acknowledged that Sail GP lost momentum with long gaps between events and said a tighter schedule would be "better for the broadcast companies, better for the fans and better for developing the value of the teams".

Coutts envisions Sail GP growing to around 16 teams, potentially in two conferences that would come together for a final series.

"That's definitely one of the ideas that's being worked through," he said. "Because that would reduce our carbon footprint in terms of shipping. It would provide the content and it would also provide a nice grand finale to the season.

"It's a proven concept that works well in other sports leagues around the world. So we definitely think it's got potential."

The high-performance catamarans are built at the Warkworth facility and the expansion and launch of Sail GP technologies illustrates the series' commitment to New Zealand. Christchurch and Auckland are locked in for the next four years alternating as this country's host of a Sail GP round.

"Sail GP technologies will enable us to look to plan long term," Coutts said. "We've never really been able to do that - in the past we've always been living from campaign to campaign.

"But this is really allowing us to expand our horizons and look at some of the technology that's been developed and applying that to the wider community."

The start of season three has seen the expansion to 12 teams with the addition of Switzerland and Canada, but it hasn't been without hiccups. Delays in finishing the 12th boat meant Japan, the least well-funded team, had to sit out the first three events.

Coutts confirmed the boat being built at the Warkworth facility wouldn't be ready for the fourth event in Copenhagen in August, and hinted there was no guarantee the Japanese team would make the start line this season.

"There are other teams wanting to come into the league and that's one of the key decisions," he said. "Do we in fact keep Japan or do we substitute them with another team?

"We're in discussions with the Japanese about that, and they are of course working hard to increase their commercial support around the team. But there are other fully funded teams that want to come into the league."

Coutts says Sail GP's audience and awareness is growing rapidly.

"We achieved a 10 million live or near-live viewership for the San Francisco finals for the first time in our history, which is amazing for such a new sports property."