Strategy games with the element of luck involved are interesting to watch (Poker etc ).
The problem with sailing is that the strategy portion involves the unseen component of wind. The america's cup tv shows spend a fortune trying to show the racer's strategy with respect to wind shifts and velocity. Meanwhile, the action component of the sailing game... eg starts tacks, jibes and crossings all look the same.... the element of the unexpected is quite low. (no home runs hit or touchdown runs broken off). So. the sailing shows focus on the people and their struggle with the pressure of big bucks sailing. The big story lines last go were about the traitorous ex patriot, the tussle between two mega bucks owners.... and so on. It was actually a better read... then TV show. I know of several sailors including myslef who really struggled to watch all of the sailing footage.
Notice how little racing is actually shown on TV and what they focus on in the show.
Track and Field is only shown every four years with the olympics.
The story line is the athletes struggle to get there and the pressure to perform. Finally, they race.
Horse racing is shown 4 times a year and suffers from declining live spectators ... The story line on TV is the owner, trainer and jockey soap opera..... relatively little about the race. The public takes an interest when the event is contested between two super horses where one must loose.
Nascar seems to focus on the personalites and crew teamwork in their 2 hour shows.
Seems to me that sailing is just not a great spectator sport for TV. On the other hand, The worrell 1000 made for a very good read in the SI coverage the last time it was run. Perhaps we should focus on getting compelling stories written about sailing and less on the video stuff.
Not to mention I I read on the other forum that a 10 minute vido clip required 70 hours of production to get. Wow... that is hard work!