One article I saw on the Aussie-18 skiff series mentioned that from the start they wanted the spectators to be able to see the action. So they picked visible boats, and made sure that the races were tight courses in view of spectating areas on land and water. They built on sailing interest, put the series in very visible places, and created more passion for the spsort.



This may be stating the obvious or re-stating what's been said - If you want to bring in sponsors and build a National interest, the construction of the series and events needs to be geared towards building a spectator sporting event, not necessarily the optimum regatta or sailing contest. In a perfect world the two could be the same. In the real world, if you want to make it a pro thing with sponsors, spectator and sporting event considerations need to come first. We don't have a National passion for this sport, but there's no reason it can't be created if that's a goal.



All of our major sporting contests are spectator entertainment enterprises, whether people admit it or not. They can blather on about the purity of their sport (basketball, golf, tennis, football, NASCAR, F1, etc.) but they are only big because somebody took them and built/marketed them into an entertainment passion. There's no reason the same can't be done for sailing, IMO.