continue to invest in the event. We've got some other great partners – SAP is a key partner for us and that deal kicked off at the end of last year. We’ve got lots more inquires right now and ongoing conversations because of the credibility of SAP, Land Rover and our other partners. We definitely need to sign a second series main partner for 2014. I’m pretty confident that we will be able to do that. Now we have a lot of venues that come to us, but it's not always easy getting all of the deals across the line, getting them all together timing wise, but the venues are a major contributor to the cost of the events - a third of our revenues, including the value in kind, comes from the host venues. This is a big change for us because in 2008 iShares contributed 90 plus per cent of the revenues. Today, the main sponsors, even with them all sold and with the second main partner in place, are less than half of our revenues. We have really diversified our revenues and that makes it a more solid product going forward and a more commercially sound proposition ultimately. SRM: What are your thoughts on the low numbers in the other two major sailing events - the Volvo Ocean Race and the America's Cup? Mark Turner: I don't know whether boat numbers is always the best measure. I’m a big supporter of everything that’s done in the sport. The only time I am not a fan is if a sponsor looks at the sport, comes in, goes for the wrong product, gets burned and doesn’t come back for 10 or 20 years. That really pains me. The two events you’ve mentioned are completely different. I think you’ve got to understand that first, before worrying about how you determine what success means. Quite unusually in sport, the Volvo Ocean Race is owned by a brand, two brands in reality: the Volvo Group and Volvo Cars. It is to some extent an activation exercise. It's delivering against sponsor objectives rather than the case of an event organiser who signs a deal with a sponsor. And that is good and bad; I guess the feedback loops are slightly different. But ultimately, while we might wish to have 25 boats like when I did the Whitbread in 1989 - that would be a beautiful product to have again - but does that mean that six to eight boats in a big scale media communication- wise, very professional event in every sense of the word on and off the water - is not successful? I’m not sure that’s the case. I think you've got to recognize it for what it is today: it’s a brand led event with a high sporting level in ocean racing and if the sponsor of the event and the sponsor of the teams believe that they get a return on what they put in based on eight boats, then I think that’s fine. We can hark back to all sorts of other versions of the event but they simply wouldn’t be on the scale that Volvo now has. The America's Cup is a completely different case again. With the best will in the world, it’s a private, individual battle and I don’t know if it can ultimately be any different than that. It's extremely different to the Volvo Ocean Race because it's about individuals wealthy enough to take on the challenge and win the Cup and then decide how they want to run it, along with some key individuals around them who help them deliver it. The Cup is a different scenario on the boat numbers. I have a lot of empathy and sympathy for all of the challenges that they are having to go through managing all of the consequences of a number of factors - not all of which they they could have controlled. The obvious mistake - and I’m sure they are the first to recognize it - was that the expectation management wasn’t
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