There is only one race track in San fran.....It becomes difficult to schedule enough action on the water and accommodate all of the teams ... eg... challengers get exclusive use of the water etc. This is not a simple problem of money... there are a lot of factors... (San fran waterfront space for instance) What I would like to know is how many spectators sat and watched the race on the water waiting for the boats to zoom bye... versus sitting in the amphitheater and watching the production real time on big screens versus those who watched it on TV far far away.

I suspect that they get the exact same TV show anyplace in the world they have reliable breeze.... now the shore side scene is up for debate... Bermuda counts on the cruise ship industry for hotel rooms... How many tourists would come for the ampithetre experience? Could Berumda pull off a better event then San Fran... It is an island that depends on the tourists.... this would be a real shot in the arm.. Interesting organizational problems...

Back back in the day... Bermuda had a large Tornado fleet housed at the old RAF Naval base... This would be a big return to high performance sailing.... (not counting those Bermuda skiff things!)

Agreed.
Looks pretty official to me.
Although I've seen stranger things happen.

Chicago is otherwise known as "the windy city". Every time I've been there, it's been cranking (although, I'm usually unfortunate enough to be there during the winter).

Bermuda can likely support it - and they're really amped up about it. I have some clients there and apparently the government is really putting everything they can into trying to secure the bid. They also have a time zone advantage at GMT -3....afternoon races can be reasonably watched live in both throughout the US and Europe (although New Zealand/Australia would need to get up pretty early in the morning to see a live match). Bermuda probably wouldn't get as much tourist action as somewhere

I just don't like it. Alinghi pulled this nonsense in Valencia (hosting away from home) because they had to (no ocean access at home), and that was bad enough. This money-chasing exercise in SF is just an embarrassment for all sides. There's a lot of smart people involved, they should have made it work.

Mike

SF Bay was the perfect venue for foiling, as well as shore side viewing, no doubt.

There aren't too many locations on the globe that can offer that kind of predictable wind and water front viewing with enough motels and dock facilities to host a big event like that. San Diego has the space, but not the wind.

Chicago...might only blow more than 10 one day out of 5 in the summer, and Bermuda is just too small, overpriced and too far away for anyone (spectators) to show up.

I'm sure the final decision boiled down to GREED from SF city officials. They (SF) demanded union wages, but uncle Larry and Russell said no go. The city knew they had the perfect infrastructure for the cup. They (SF) leveraged that to their advantage. They gambled, they doubled down, and didn't flinch. Larry and Russell closed the briefcase and walked. San Francisco lost. So now the unions will continue to provide city officials with their resort homes and BMW's, business as usual.

The numbers that SF claims they lost are a red herring. The economic reports generated in December 2013 reported an positive impact of $550 million for SF and 3,800 jobs. The December reports agreed that there were over 1,000,000 spectators who attended the racing live in SF. How much do you think each spectator spent during his/her visit? How much do you think the bay area collected in retail sales taxes, lodging taxes, airport taxes, rental car taxes, alcohol taxes, etc.?

Name a sporting event that draws a million fans that actually attend the event. Super Bowl? World Cup? How 'bout this shocker . . . sailing. Who woulda thought . . .

America's Cup: Dalton reports good progress with sponsors + Full Video
http://www.sail-world.com/index.cfm?nid=123268



Dalton seem very happy with how things a shaping up for his team, anyone alse think that Jimmy's and Russell's recent media "attack" on ETNZ was a setup with Dalton?
It got quite a bit of coverage so maybe it worked.

More of the same. ENTZ's marketing video.

It was a ruthless attack but I thought it was a brilliant move. Fight fire with fire and start to undermine Dalton a little so he doesn't feel so privileged. With the close loss and the huge opposing comeback, it would be easy for a fan base to begin to question their leadership. Oracle stoking the flames of that discontent should get TNZ more focused on building a team and less focused on publicly attacking Oracle and the event.

Jake, I believe you're correct about "windy city". From my limited time there, it refers to the frequent and brutal winter storms and lake-effect snow that hammers the place.

Not so sure about the summer conditions, but they do have quick changing weather being as north as it is..

Didn't DUB do a Chi-Mac not too long ago?

Monthly Windguru statistics of Chicago per month in Beaufort, its not too bad actually:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10587353/web/chicago-wind.JPG

Luna Rossa - Interview with Randazzo, Sirena, and Bertelli regarding new AC35

Team France - Will they come?

Except that Russel Couts already said they want to run the races in June, to finish around July 4, and per your graph above, that's the very lightest winds in Chicago.

It's pretty good in January though. Maybe they should do it on 62' Iceboats going over 100 knots! :^)

Ice boats. Now that'd be a twist.

The term "Windy City" for Chicago was coined in regards to the windbag politicians in the 1880s, not the sailing conditions.

Wind is front driven for the most part. Weak thermals in the summer, since the thermal wind tends to counter the gradient wind direction (SW to NW).

And the fans could walk right out onto the course, do a little ice fishing between starts...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMpQGeNcFNs

Shoebridge responds to Oracle obsession with Kiwi team

"'To me it is bizzare. He (Spithill) has an unhealthy obsession with Team New Zealand, how it is managed, how it is funded and what its strategies are,' said Shoebridge. He went on to accuse Spithill of trash-talking the NZ team, and suggesting that Spithill's replacement management team for Team NZ, were all close to Oracle Team USA, all of them had gone with Russell Coutts to sail for Alinghi in 2003, beating a talent-stripped Team NZ and taking the America's Cup to Switzerland. "

Link to Shoebridge audio interview

I know that I spent several thousand dollars in restaurants, cab rides, more restaurants, etc while we were there for a week.

I wasn't alone. The kiwis seemed to be living it up over there :P

The pulling power of the Team New Zealand brand