I can sort of speak from both sides of the coin, having now spent time on the conglomerate side, and previously being the single team small operation.

I'll preface this by saying that the reason we went "all in" with so many teams, is because we heeded the warnings of Chuck when he sat us down in '08 and said "10 boats don't pay for this race."

So we got some new guys on 20's. We knew that they didn't have the experience to get to the line without help - so Trey and I, already planning on running our two boats, added them to our fold. We had to get more ground personnel to handle the additional boats. We had to get a manager to keep track of all this stuff. So even though we added two boats, we added a whole new level of complexity - especially since they were new teams and would need a certain level of ramp-up time to get what this thing was all about.

When it was presented to us that Carrie and Sizzle wanted to get into the race, we looked at what we had already, and how many more resources it would take to get them to the line. We found that as we added more boats, other than the personnel, that the incremental costs were lower.

It was when the race was hovering around 18 boats or so, when we decided to introduce our outsourced logistics operation. I think that something like what we offered is going to be necessary to offer in order for overseas teams to be interested in this race. One team, Pirates, took us up on our turnkey package. To my knowledge, based on the feedback we got from them, they were happy customers. We certainly have some ideas on how to improve this program in the future.

As for sponsorships. No matter how low the incremental costs were getting, we were still looking at a huge budget compared to a smaller team. We had, I think, 11 rooms at the Islander. WITHOUT SPONSORSHIPS - WE COULDN'T HAVE DONE WHAT WE DID.

I remember reading an SI article where Todd Hart said that we had problems raising sponsorship dollars for the W1k - but that was fine by him since he "sails for [my] himself." There's virtue in his words indeed - since sponsorships are often misconceived by those who haven't had them before as one-way streets. We're not Michael Jordan, Jeff Gordon, or any other professional athlete (well except for Carrie and JC) who only needs to wear the product and give the Sponsors ROI. So while you may be sailing for "Team Velocity" or "Tad Pecorak" you really are racing for THEM, and you have to remember that while you carry their logos on you sails, on your website, on your body, that you represent THEIR corporate name. This is another thing that some people don't understand. Everything you do, you have to have the "what would our sponsors think of this?" in the back of your mind.

In the vein of "working for the sponsors" is why we brought in CLEAN from SA. In addition to the broad coverage and readership he brought the race, his gonzo journalism got our sponsors more exposure than any other media outlet available to us. Since the overwhelming majority of our sponsors were sailing/marine related, then SA was the perfect demographic to shoot for. Whether you love CLEAN or hate him, you cannot deny the popularity of his website. Like Howard Stern, when people who hate him are asked "why do you keep listening?" the response was "I want to see what he says next." I don't want to blow up his spot, but he's a very cool dude. I had the pleasure of staying in the same room as him and his lovely wife the entire week, and I'm proud to count him amongst my friends now.

As for whether or not the size of our team allowed us to get more sponsorships, I'm sure that had a lot to do with the decision to sponsor us from some companies. I'd like to think that they sponsored us because of the quality of the people involved, not just because we were spamming ourselves all over the fleet.

As for the complexity of running all these teams? We knew that we had to pick the right person for the job. Without Allison, the wheels would have fallen off the wagon very very early. When we arrived in Islamorada, we were all tired from lack of sleep, moody from being cramped up with each other for so long, and HOT. I was honestly scared someone was going to blow up, but it passed in one day as we have a plethora of personalities on the team who have a divine talent to make people laugh - which is well needed throughout the race.

Does that answer your questions WB?