Canadians in fight to survive into SailGP Season 5 and recover Halifax venue
by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World.com 12 Jul 16:45 NZST
Canada SailGP Team during a practice session ahead of the Rockwool Canada Sail Grand Prix in Halifax . May 2024 © Ricardo Pinto/SailGP
Canada SailGP fans have taken to social media reacting to Halifax's exclusion as a venue for Season 5 of the SailGP.
Soon after the announcement of next season's venues, the team issued a media statement, saying they hoped to get Halifax back on the SailGP circuit for Season 6. However, first, the Canucks must avoid being one of the teams being cut from the competition after this weekend's Season 4 Grand Final in San Francisco. Three League-owned teams were given notice a fortnight ago that with two new privately owned teams joining for Season 5 and with only 11 boats available for 12 teams - one would be axed.
The Season 5 schedule, announced last Monday, has three of the 14 events sailed in the Middle East despite the region not having a team in the SailGP League.
As previously announced, Season 5 will start and finish in Dubai, UAE, and three events will be held in the USA. In addition to their team being threatened with exclusion from Season 5, Canadian fans were informed that Halifax had been dropped as a venue for Season 5 despite being the most popular venue.
In their written statement, the Canadian team claimed that "the inaugural Rockwool Canada Sail Grand Prix broke SailGP records on and off the water, with the fastest ticket sell-out in SailGP history and the largest ever spectator fleet. With over 50,000 visitors on the Halifax and Dartmouth waterfronts during race weekend, more than half (53%) of ticket holders came from outside Halifax, and local hotels reported a 25% increase in room bookings on the previous year."
"A complete economic impact analysis is underway and will be released in the coming weeks. On average, SailGP events across Season 4 have contributed US $18.9 million in regional economic impact, as independently audited by Deloitte."
"The Halifax event alone increased our social media following by 107,000 followers," Hall told Portia Clark, CBC Radio's Information Morning host. "So that's what we can do. And for sure, the support that we have in Halifax and across Canada helps us increase the valuation of the team. It's a team effort."
Attracting that number of followers on social media sometimes means staging stunts outside racing, like skipper Phil Robertson dressing as Justine Beaver, the team's mascot, and helming their F50 wingsailed foiling catamaran.
For that stunt, they received a scolding from the organizers for having an untethered beaver running around the F50. Still, they couldn't wait to see its positive impact on social media—figuring that the "likes" reward was probably worth the admonishment. For all the ire of the League safety officials, the skit featured prominently in the latest edition of "Living on the Edge," the League's regular monthly video magazine, which featured the Halifax and New York SailGP events.
Since its inception, the team has mastered the black art of disruptive marketing, either with daring/high-risk on-the-water race tactics, which often work, but not always. Off the water, no love has been lost as Robertson exchanges verbal blows with their US rival in media conferences.
Skipper Phil Robertson can be relied on to let fly with a zinger or flippant response in any interview situation, usually creating a media talking point. On the race course, skipper Robertson has a derring-do approach - if he sees a gap or picks up a weakness in an opponent, he'll go for it. In the often dour world of professional sailing, fans have learned to expect the unexpected with the Canadian team. The large number of fans supporting the team in Halifax, either watching dockside or online, is unsurprising.
An expanded SailGP Season 5 has new events in Brazil, Germany and Switzerland. Brazil will have a new privately owned team sailing in Season 5. Germany and Switzerland already have privately owned teams sailing on the circuit but have yet to have a home event. The last regatta was in New York - the first time in the Big Apple since Season 1. However, the USA does have three events - and in Season 4, there were four in North America. While the Americas still have four events, a decision about the Brazilian venue has yet to be made. The 2016 Olympic venue of Guanabara Bay is the obvious choice; however, sewerage and pollution are still issues. Guanabara Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (declared in 2012) and one of the most polluted coastal ecosystems in the world.
"We broke almost every record in SailGP, which is quite amazing. Over 50,000 people came down to watch. We had 107,000 new fans on social media. We broke every record in terms of selling merchandise. Two days of tickets were sold out in about 12 minutes. We put on an amazing show. It was definitely a fan favourite."
Hall believes the dropping of Halifax as a venue, which some on social media claim had a three-year contract with the League, was attributable to the uncertainty over the ownership of the Canadian team. The team has performed well and lies in fifth place on the Season 4 points table—ahead of several teams stacked with pro-sailing rockstars.
"The team is for sale," Hall told the host Portia Clark. "It has been for sale for a little while, but I have to say, there's an incredible amount of interest in the team, and particularly based on the success in Halifax, the phone started ringing, and that doesn't happen a lot in sailing."
"We are tracking in the right direction, but the League wasn't in a position to confirm another event in Canada when we weren't 100% sure that the Canadian team would be on the start line at the beginning of Season 5.
Canada is one of three League-owned teams (along with France and Spain). A couple of weeks ago, all were given notice that new teams were coming into the League—a total of 12 teams, with only 11 F50s available - meaning one team has to drop out.
Ironically Canada entered SailGP via a similar route when the Canucks were fully funded. The Canadians took the League-owned Japan SailGP's F50 when their participation "paused indefinitely" despite finishing second overall in the first two seasons.
"We're really in a commercial race to try and secure ownership so that we can be sure that we are on the start line when Season 5 gets underway in Dubai in November," Hall explained.
She wouldn't be specific about the asking price for the team except to say that the valuation for the British team that sold a couple of months ago was north of US$40 million. Others in the SailGP League have put the valuation at up to $80 million.
"That's just the price of the actual team, and then there are the operating costs on top of that. But there's a lot of demand, and we're seeing, in the North American market, in particular, a huge demand for sports teams. And SailGP is now on the radar.
"We're going into our fifth season, and there's just a lot of interest from individuals, venture capital funds and investors looking at buying teams, which is a positive thing," Hall added.
With the final event in Season 4 coming up this weekend, Hall says the team "feels really good. We're in fifth place overall, and there might need to be an upset in the standings to make the grand final to win the $2 million, but we're feeling pretty good about it."
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