"Archery, table tennis, sailing, athletics, or whatever - we are all facing the same challenges. We all have to entertain whilst maintaining our sporting integrity."


never sit in a normal job somewhere delivering something that is already in place - that's not really me. I love inspiring people with new things, whether that is getting them on their bike and racing up a mountain col, or creating something like we’ve done with Extreme Sailing Series. I love going into a new space and the America's Cup is interesting in that respect but I also recognise that it is a space where the will of a few private individuals is a much stronger factor than the pure commercial aspects of it. I respect that, it is the nature of that product. But I am not sure if I would necessarily be the right person in that environment. On purpose, in sailing I haven’t gone into that private owner world. In all honesty there are plenty of other ways to get wealthy and easier ways to meet wealthy individuals who want to come into sport. I have tried to stick in a more logical area where it is about pure value and marketing and delivering a good overall package. That's just my choice - it's not that one approach is better than another.  Of course, it depends who wins but the Cup ultimately is driven by some very fascinating and very powerful individuals and I may not be the right person in that environment. But if somebody wins who wants to look at it slightly differently then it might be an interesting challenge for me to get involved in.  But in the meantime there are plenty of other interesting challenges in sailing and we have plenty of different projects on the go, inshore and offshore, that might evolve in the next 12 months. Plus I have a great passion for what we are doing in the cycling world in particular and there are lots of ways we could go with that. There are also lots of other sports we could get into in the outside world too. So there are plenty of other challenges and we are certainly not short of things to do.  Between the America's Cup, the Volvo and ourselves there is a good network of people who keep in touch and there is a genuine desire by all of the people involved in all of those events to be moving the sport forward. I enjoy being able to work at that level and being involved in the conversations about what we can do to move the sport forward in all its different elements.  I am fascinated to watch all of the different events to see how they evolve and I am never afraid of having a quiet conversation in the background to give my opinion on things. It's a fascinating and challenging time for the sport with a squeeze in most of our traditional markets on funding. But that is a good thing in that it makes us all think hard about what works and what could work in the future.  There are also some amazing opportunities - the sport is going to evolve rapidly in Asia in a way that I don't think anyone can understand or predict yet. That's going to shake a lot of things up over the coming five or ten years and economically in Europe things are not going to be the same again. So it's an interesting time on the big picture, macro scale.  At the end of the day we are a sport that costs lots of money and we are going to have to be commercially smart if we are going to enjoy our sport for sport's sake. There's no going back to a less commercial time, it's just not going to happen and no sport is in that position today - archery, table tennis, sailing, athletics, or whatever - we are all facing the same challenges. We all have to entertain whilst maintaining our sporting integrity.


July 2013 46


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