6:19 AM Mon 22 Feb 2010 GMT
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'The America's Cup en route to America. Nice Louis Vuitton case..!'
BMW/Oracle RAcing
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What just happened in Valencia wasn't an America's Cup as we used to know it, or want to see it again. It was a rescue mission, something of a raid. A successful raid. Leading to this happy moment at City Hall, San Francisco.
Having registered with the Pessimist Party as soon as people started taking positions on the likelihood of an America's Cup match on San Francisco Bay, I have one question.
Mind if I flip-flop on that?
There was a love-fest on Saturday at City Hall. Mayor Gavin Newsom handed BMW Oracle Racing team owner Larry Ellison the key to the city. Ellison gave the Mayor a team jacket which he promptly put on. And both made a lot of noise about finding a way to make this thing happen.
"We will do whatever it takes," Newsom said, "because of the magnitude of the opportunity."
"We don't need taxpayer support," Ellison said. "We need access to waterfront land. The 2007 match brought 680 million Euros to the economy in Valencia. That's almost a billion U$, and this should be even bigger."
That was said in the context of a weekend in which the America's Cup was presented to the membership of the winning Golden Gate Yacht Club on Friday night, then to the city on Saturday, and then taken on tour, beginning with San Diego, on Sunday.
And I'm pretty sure I heard Ellison, Russell Coutts, and Jimmy Spithill talking about bringing the big trimaran, USA 17, to San Francisco Bay. I could begin to warm up to the phrase that bugged me in Valencia, Bring it on.
Ellison learned to sail on San Francisco Bay in a Lido 14 (Like the one shown here). That's enough to settle a man's mind, but our deep-pockets software guy also sees what others see: the bay as a natural amphitheater; the backgrounds that are a cameraman's dream. From his ultra-modern, occasionally-visited city house on an ?ber-block of Pacific Heights real estate, Ellison can take in the entire vista. And there's more, Ellison said: "It's important that the wind on San Francisco Bay turns on at one o'clock every day in the summer."
Yep, that San Francisco seabreeze counts because, when you're selling TV time, you have to deliver. My crazy friends will sit up all night if a race is delayed, or they'll set an alarm to shake them out in an hour, and then again in another hour. But my crazy friends are only a tiny segment of the market that sponsors are trying to reach.
Full story at:
kimballlivingston.com/?p=1817
by Kimball Livingston, Blue Planet Times
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Manly, QLD
