I think it's a mistake to conclude that because the general public does not understand sailing, that sailing must be dumbed down. Improved coverage techniques and skilled commentators could go a long way towards explaining enough of what is going on to make the sport accessible to the uninitiated. Pretty much every sport becomes more interesting the more you know about it. Sailing is no different. There are plenty of inherently boring and/or ridiculously complex sports that have huge followings. Sailing starts from a more tenable position than many of them.

One thing about racing in general is if you don't know anything about the participants, it's difficult to care about who wins the race. How many Americans followed the Tour de France before Lance Armstrong? For Americans to be interested in sailing would seem to require some pre-Olympic coverage of the medal contenders. Ever seen any of that outside of sailing mags?