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Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from newstalksb follow this and

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Speaker 1: our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: On the line is Professor Mark Ormcy is a former

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Speaker 2: New Zealand and World Champion sailor Team New Zealand member, author,

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Speaker 2: environmentalist and professor of Sport and Recreation at the Auckland

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Speaker 2: University of Technology. Very great to have you on this afternoon.

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Speaker 3: Mark, Yeah, afternoon.

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Speaker 2: So when it comes to sale GP and the future

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Speaker 2: of that event in Auckland, are you a supporter of

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Speaker 2: ratepayer money going into supporting this event going forward?

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Speaker 3: Well, certainly as a sailor, a lifelong sailor and sailing fan,

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Speaker 3: I am. But when I put my sort of academic,

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Speaker 3: more analytical hat on, I think a key thing is

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Speaker 3: and this is true for any event, irrespective of whether

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Speaker 3: it's a sporting event or other kind of entertainment special event.

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Speaker 3: When you're using rate payers or taxpayers money, it needs

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Speaker 3: to be really clear what the return on that investment is.

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Speaker 3: And we know that an event's portfolio can be a

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Speaker 3: really positive thing for our economy. Certainly, the vibe over

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Speaker 3: the weekend in Auckland I don't think we've experienced since

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Speaker 3: pre COVID times. And yeah, we've got to remember that

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Speaker 3: Auckland was locked down longer than anywhere else in the country,

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Speaker 3: and especially the hospitality industry really needed the shot in

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Speaker 3: the arm that this last weekend gave us with sale GP,

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Speaker 3: with the Luke Comb's concert, with Auckland FC having a

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Speaker 3: home game, So we had this real sense of vibrancy

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Speaker 3: and energy and positivity. And that's hard to put some

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Speaker 3: numbers on, but it's certainly part of the picture of

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Speaker 3: making an investment in special events like this.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and as this Texas says here, we went to

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Speaker 4: the viaduct and watched SALGP on the big screen and

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Speaker 4: could screen and could see the boats as they went by.

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Speaker 4: It was awesome and free. So it is there is

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Speaker 4: an experience that people in Auckland can have. How profitable

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Speaker 4: is the sale GP enterprise across the world because it's

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Speaker 4: traveling everywhere through that whole year. You got eleven teams

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Speaker 4: in there. Are they making a lot of money? I

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Speaker 4: know a lot of money has been pumped into it,

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Speaker 4: but is it a successful undertaking?

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Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I guess it depends on your perspective. It's

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Speaker 3: successful in terms of its growth I mean it started

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Speaker 3: off as an idea hatched by Russell Coots and Larry

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Speaker 3: Allison off the back of the loss of the America's

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Speaker 3: Cup to New Zealand and twenty sixteen of coming up

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Speaker 3: with an alternative professional sailing circuit that in many ways,

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Speaker 3: they looked at other successful models like Moto GP, Formula one,

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Speaker 3: other professional sporting franchises and went ahead and said, with

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Speaker 3: Larry Allison's significant backing, let's give this five years and

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Speaker 3: see if we can turn it into a commercially viable

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Speaker 3: sports entertainment product. Now they're well on the way to

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Speaker 3: achieving that, and that's out of all of the teams

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Speaker 3: that they have, and remembering they've added teams over time,

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Speaker 3: all but two of them are independently funded. They're numbers

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Speaker 3: internationally in terms of the viewership and therefore attracting sponsors.

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Speaker 3: Rolex we've seen on the Weekend and others and other

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Speaker 3: events is really growing. So they're doing the work needed

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Speaker 3: to create something that's commercially successful longer term. I think

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Speaker 3: they're on the verge of that, but it has really

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Speaker 3: required a long term and substantive investment by Larry Ellison

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Speaker 3: to get to this point.

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Speaker 2: Is it easier to cater for in terms of setting

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Speaker 2: up from ratepayer funding and the event itself than the

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Speaker 2: likes of America's Cup. Clearly there's been a lot of

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Speaker 2: controversy over the hosting and not hosting of America's Cup

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Speaker 2: in Auckland, But for this event in particular, sale GP,

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Speaker 2: is this a lot easier to I suppose set up

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Speaker 2: as a long term event.

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Speaker 3: I think it's easier in the sense that it's a

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Speaker 3: lot more regular. I'm one of the big challenges with

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Speaker 3: the America's Cup is that it only happens every three

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Speaker 3: or four years and for a couple of weeks, right,

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Speaker 3: So that from a commercial sponsorship point of view, is

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Speaker 3: not a particularly attractive proposition, Whereas sale GP now is

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Speaker 3: a year long, multi city, multi event franchise where if

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Speaker 3: you buy in as a sponsor, you're guarantee to not

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Speaker 3: only get the exposure that you're looking for from that

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Speaker 3: investment on a long term basis, you've also got multiple

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Speaker 3: events where you can leverridge off with your clients and

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Speaker 3: your supporters and your staff as well. So it's not

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Speaker 3: just about promotion of your brand, it's all the other

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Speaker 3: things that you can Leverridge off it. So the Sale

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Speaker 3: GP from a commercial perspective, is a far more viable

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Speaker 3: proposition than the America's Cup that only happens every three

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Speaker 3: or four years, and there's no guarantee of where it's

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Speaker 3: going to go depending on who wins it the next time.

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Speaker 3: So that's the beauty about the Sale GP product. I

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Speaker 3: think it's just a more compelling commercial proposition for sponsors

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Speaker 3: and host cities.

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Speaker 4: Wet Mike Oran's a ut sailing professor. So yeah, as

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Speaker 4: you say, is Auckland, Sydney this year, the SALGP Los Angeles,

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Speaker 4: San Francisco, They're going to Brazil, they go to New York,

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Speaker 4: They're going to the UK, all over over the shop Geneva,

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Speaker 4: they are in the At least it's a global thing.

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Speaker 4: It's happening all year that there's a huge excitement level.

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Speaker 4: There's eleven teams. Is it sucking the life out of

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Speaker 4: the America's Cup?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a really good question, isn't it. I mean

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Speaker 3: the people would say it, including Sir Russell Coots is

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Speaker 3: the ce of Sale GP says, well, it's an alternative

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Speaker 3: and not a competitor to the America's Cup. But I

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Speaker 3: think in reality, there is a competition going on for

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Speaker 3: what is the pre eminent competitive sailing product out there globally.

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Speaker 3: The thing that sale GP doesn't have is the one

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Speaker 3: hundred and eighty year history that the America's Cup has.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, obviously it's a new product, sale GP. But

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Speaker 3: it's growing in its success and you have to start somewhere.

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Speaker 3: And I from my perspective, I just see the growth.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I understand the viewership now has grown to

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Speaker 3: something like over two hundred and twenty million viewers internationally.

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Speaker 3: Now that's substantive for what is really a niche sport.

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Speaker 3: So you know, the vast majority of those viewers are

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Speaker 3: not sailors, the people who are entertained by what they're seeing,

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Speaker 3: the splash and the crash, the sort of the competition

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Speaker 3: where you don't know who's going to win from one

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Speaker 3: competition to the next. And that's really what sporting entertainment

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Speaker 3: in the global marketplace is all about now. So sale

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Speaker 3: GPS making great inroads. You can never replace the it's

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Speaker 3: a little bit analogous quite frankly to the Rand Furly shield, right,

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Speaker 3: you can't replace that history in rugby, but the super

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Speaker 3: rugby kind of product arguably has become a more high

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Speaker 3: profile competitive professional rugby event than the Rand Furly Shield,

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Speaker 3: so perhaps there's an analogy there for where things might

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Speaker 3: go Sale GP versus the America's Cup.

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Speaker 4: Oh, thank you so much for your time. Mark Aram's

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Speaker 4: a ut sailing professor.

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