"If you want to create things in sailing or compete in the part of sailing that depends on commercial
funding, ultimately you have to entertain."
SRM: Why do you think the Extreme Sailing Series has been such a success in what remains a difficult economic climate for all sports events? Mark Turner: I guess the spectator side is a relatively new concept, but there's a real fundamental that if you want to create things in sailing or compete in the part of sailing that depends on commercial funding, ultimately you have to entertain - whether that’s entertaining the VIPs in a marquee or it’s entertaining the public that come to an event. First and foremost you have to create a great sporting event, but you do have to entertain too. Once you are in a space you have to get a sponsor or a venue or a city or a region to put money down. Then you've got to give them a return. Ultimately to give them their return you are going to have to entertain anyone that needs entertaining. The Extreme Sailing Series in it’s origin was created as a business to business hospitality product for iShares in 2007. We saw quite quickly what we needed to do for them was in line with attracting a non sailing audience to the event. Step by step over seven years we have built on those elements. At the heart of it, it’s a sports business property like other sports have. It’s relatively easy to understand for a sponsor even though they don’t know the sport at all: It has a great hospitality offering in that guests go sailing and are out on the water - the biggest asset of the sport is getting people out on the water - plus, It has a strong public aspect. It attracts thousands of people, so it works for consumer brands from that point of view. After seven years it now has a really strong global media presence. SRM: The Extreme Sailing Series is now a global project - was going global a key part of your strategy? Mark Turner: The global aspect for us was a big leap to take in 2011, but it was absolutely the right one from a sponsorship property perspective. There’s not much in sailing that is global and annual. From a sporting perspective you have to tick all the boxes. The stadium sailing format is at the heart of it and to make stadium sailing work you’ve got to do some things differently: take the boats from over the horizon, stick them in an 800 metre by 300 metre box next to a iconic city back drop and sail with whatever wind you happen to have. You need to have a lot of races in order that the luck that exists in all sailing - like wind shifts and everything else - is reduced to a minimum by having lots and lots of racing. That single concept of having 30 to 40 races in each of our acts has allowed us to race in some pretty radical places where you wouldn’t get away with doing any other form of sail racing. In the end, the best guy wins every time and they don’t often win before the last race. It’s a very fair fight because in 30 or 40 races the compromise where the wind may not be as pure and where unexpected things happen on the water is ironed out by the number of races. Fundamentally, we are able to attract brands is because it’s easy to understand, ticks all the different boxes. It gets very emotional and it’s very exciting to watch. But it’s not the right thing for all of sailing. I think it’s a mistake when people try to make every part of sailing somehow a spectator sport. I’m not sure it’s either necessary or successful.
Image credit: Ian Roman/Volvo Ocean Race July 2013 37
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