Jimmy Spithill has launched the Red Bull Italy SailGP Team for season five. Photo / Naim Chidiac, Red Bull Content Pool
Jimmy Spithill has had a hectic 12 months.
This time last year, it was announced that the 45-year-old would be replaced at the helm of the United States SailGP team after it was sold to a consortium of new owners.
He took a step away from the
He turned all his competitive focus to trying to win the America’s Cup with Italian syndicate Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli; announcing his retirement from that arena when his crew were eliminated in the challenger series final. All the while, he got to work assembling an Italian outfit for the new SailGP season, which begins in Dubai this weekend.
“It’s been busy, I’m not going to lie to you,” Spithill told the Herald.
“But one thing I really noticed when I was running the US team, at that same period I was working for Luna Rossa, so I was living in Italy, I was competing in Italy, and I was seeing firsthand the amount of talent that was coming through.
“I saw, competing for the US team, we’d go into the Italian event and it’d be the most heavily populated event...yet there was no Italian team. I just thought when you put all those ingredients together and the fact that it’s commercially so well known and there’s a huge audience – Luna Rossa’s played such a huge part in building the sport up – I thought what an amazing opportunity.
“It was fitting because I’d done three campaigns with Luna Rossa over a significant period of time and I’ve been living in Italy, so the stars aligned and given my long relationship with Red Bull...this was a natural stepping-stone, I think, to take another step as title partner. It’s an exciting opportunity for all involved.”
The Red Bull Italy SailGP team will feature plenty of that local talent, including Ruggero Tita (two-time Olympic gold medalist) and Giulia Faiva (Women’s America’s Cup winner), with Australian wing trimmer Kyle Langford – an America’s Cup and three-time SailGP winner – the only import as the Italians lured him away from the Australian team.
The league had teased the Italian entry for some time, but it wasn’t until just two days before the first event of the season that Spithill’s team was officially confirmed on the starting line; an announcement featuring breakdancers and a freestyle footballer, among other exhibitions.
“We wanted to launch and announce the team with the boat in the background at the base and really do it Red Bull style with some stunts, some activations. You see a team launch in a press conference, I think that’s pretty boring to be honest. I’d much rather have some stunts from some incredible athletes and announce with a bang.”
Spithill will work behind the scenes in his role as chief executive, making sure the team has all the resources they need to be able to compete and play whatever part he can to help them get results.
He will not be in a sailing position with the team but is listed as a reserve driver and can step into the fold if a teammate is unavailable to compete at an event, although he has been hands-on when helping the team get up to speed during training days.
It’s a show of faith in his team, as SailGP has historically been a harsh platform for new teams to perform on given race weeks are the only time during the season they get the opportunity to sail their F50s.
“I’ve definitely tried to help in that regard in terms of accelerating the learning, but at the end of the day, Italy has the talent. They’ve got the athletes to go out there and get it done, and they’re way more advanced than I am.
“I think as a short-term gain that could have been a legitimate strategy, but for me, in terms of investing in the team and really thinking about the future, you’ve got to take advantage of those hours. For the team to really learn, they’ve got to go through the race reps. It’s all good and well to be doing some practice sailing, but where you really learn and grow as a team is that high-level competition, so we’ve got to just throw the team into the fire.
“They’re going to make some mistakes, they’re going to do some good things, but ultimately, that’s all part of the process and all of these athletes are not afraid of getting out of their comfort zone and challenging themselves, otherwise they wouldn’t be Olympic champions or America’s Cup or SailGP champions.”
While Spithill’s days of competing on-board in the F50 foiling catamarans are behind him, he noted that bringing his Italian team into the league had allowed him to see the growth across the board since his debut in season two when he took over as chief executive and driver for the US team.
The league has continued to grow each year, with 12 teams to compete across an expanded 14-event calendar in season five; league chief executive Sir Russell Coutts noting before the Dubai event that 10 of those 12 teams are now privately funded while announcing the league had doubled the prize money on offer at each event.
“This is probably the most excited I’ve been in my career. When I see the growth of where SailGP has come from in just four short seasons to where it is today, if you look at all the broadcast numbers, the media valuations, it’s the top event now in our sport and it’s basically a start-up,” Spithill said.
“The other thing that’s exciting, if you look at the teams, almost all are now privately owned and by not just guys that like sailing, but by private equity companies, guys that own NBA teams and sophisticated investors, at pretty amazing valuations.
“To see the market speaking and responding in multiple ways, the real beneficiaries are all this next generation; those kids that are coming up through the sport of sailing and see ‘oh, wow, that is a career path for me’ just like a young child might be playing little league baseball and says, ‘right, I want to make to the Major League Baseball and I can make a real serious career and living out of this now’. That’s an option here and that’s something really exciting and rewarding to be a part of.”
Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.
The next season of SailGP is set to look a little bit different.