SailGP: Making Waves

16 Jun 2023 | Tom Barwick

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This weekend, SailGP’s 10-strong fleet of racing boats will return to the water for Season 4 of the climate-focused sailing league.

Despite only a four-week layoff between racing, the organisation has managed to squeeze in a flurry of commercial activity over the past month – from recruiting fresh faces and adding to the in-house crew, to expanding with existing partners and agreeing new broadcast arrangements.

Ahead of the season opener in Chicago, Tom Barwick caught up with SailGP Managing Director, Andrew Thompson, to find out more about the growth of the series.

“It’s been quite the journey so far,” says Thompson reflecting on his time at the helm. “If I look back to Season One of SailGP, we had six teams and five events. By Season 3, we put on 11 events with nine teams competing. And now, we’re expanding again for Season Four. 10 teams, 12 events.”

A former Deloitte accountant, Thompson saw his career in sport take off after working on the financial firm’s sponsorship of London 2012, before entering the sailing world as CFO of the America’s Cup.

Asked to cast an eye over this season’s calendar – the biggest to date – Thompson picks out New York as “the big one” in a calendar that already contains iconic sailing locations such as San Francisco, Saint-Tropez and Auckland.

“Going back there is so exciting, we’ve now got a fantastic racecourse there,” he explains, noting that city hasn’t hosted a SailGP race since its inaugural season. “I think it’s a seminal moment for us as an organisation to go back to New York and do it much bigger and better than we’ve ever done it before. It’s a huge market for sponsors and media, as you can imagine too.

“We’ve got four events in the US this year – Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and LA. That includes the three biggest cities in the country – there’s no surprises as to why we’re there,” he says, emphasising the focus on the US in this season’s schedule.

As well as capitalising on a “groundswell of support” in the States, the calendar is also set to take the 10 teams to the Middle East, numerous European venues, and a race in Auckland to satisfy SailGP’s “huge Kiwi fan base.”

Moving forward Thompson is eyeing an “annual calendar” with a commitment to providing fans with “stability for Season 5“, as well as targeting the “massive opportunity for growth in European markets.”

One new European figure to enter the fray in Season 4 is former Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel, who recently announced the launch of the Germany SailGP Team alongside double Olympic sailing bronze medallist Erik Heil and team owner Thomas Riedel.

“We’ve been talking to an interested group in Germany for some time,” Thompson explains. “We haven’t hidden that Germany is a key market we’ve wanted to break now for a while”.

Working alongside businessman Riedel, a former Formula 1 investor, according to Thompson, Vettel’s interest in SailGP stems from the competition’s potential for growth alongside and “an alignment with our sustainability initiatives and what he believes in personally. Our boats are being powered by nature, and I think Sebastian sees our green credentials and wants to stand behind a property he believes in.”

As well as a new team, SailGP has seen several new commercial partners climb on board over the past month. In addition to extending relationships with the Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala Investment Company and global financial services provider Apex Group, the league has locked in global partner renewals with Oracle to launch its new fan engagement platform The Dock, and Rolex, a 10-year agreement which will see the watchmaker continue as the global presenting partner and as the exclusive official timepiece of the championship through to the end of Season 13.

Explaining why he thinks brands have been so keen to associate themselves with the sailing league in recent months, Thompson says that the property has matured since its inaugural season in 2019, adding, “We’ve got an attractive fanbase and it is a lot younger than one would think. We’re also beginning to attract more ‘racing’ fans, which has seen us move away from traditional sailing sponsors. Getting more interest from outside of that traditional market is important for us.”

According to Thompson, brands are no longer seeing SailGP as a product with potential and a wealthy fanbase. Instead, it’s a serious competition that’s able to back up growth after three years of “demonstrating its trajectory.”

Alongside the surge the sponsorship activity, Thompson is also working to ensure growth in the broadcast space.

“It is clear that we have made a TV racing product,” he explains. “That’s the space we want to be in. And then you throw in the patented augmented graphics, the overlay of the course and so many other innovative production features that make the sport accessible.”

In a week in which saw the announcement of a new deal with Canal+ in France in addition to a milestone agreement with ITV for free-to-air coverage in the UK – matching those already in place in New Zealand, Australia and the US – Thompson emphasises the importance of the terrestrial broadcasters and the “massive uplift in reach they bring” to the overall success of the series.

“The racing is now at a level that anybody can win in any given weekend. And I’m certain that not all racing properties can say that. So that for me makes it a compelling broadcast product,” he says.

However, despite the organisation’s recent success, Thompson is aware that to turn racing fans’ attention away from the tarmac and to the water, there is still a lot more work to be done.

“I think there is still a hesitancy within the industry,” he says describing what it will take to win over fans en masse. “There is a perception with sailing that you need to wait for wind, and it’s going to be miles offshore and it’s not going to be a quick race. It’s our responsibility to educate the market because that is not the case. We are short-form 15-minute races with a 90-minute broadcast window. And let’s not forget – it is a visually stunning product.”

Though there are gains to made in capturing the general public’s interest, SailGP is not short of recognition from within the industry, with Thompson describing the league’s recent victory in the Environmental Sustainability Award category at the FEVO Sport Industry Awards 2023 as “humbling” and “well deserved given the amount of hard work the team puts in.”

“Even just to get nominated is great,” he adds. “It is certainly an honour for us to be rubbing shoulders with the likes of Manchester City and Formula E in the shortlist,” he adds.

With the wind in its sails, the competition starts all over again on Friday. Heading to the Chicago curtain-raiser, Thompson will be ready to welcome new hires, new partners and even a Formula 1 world champion.