SailGP Expands US Market With New York and Los Angeles Races
Catamaran racing league SailGP is expanding its schedule to 12 events for its upcoming fourth season, adding events in Los Angeles and New York. The league’s current season is set to conclude in May in San Francisco with a $1 million winner-take-all prize.
The new season will kick off in Chicago on June 16-17, followed by summer events in Europe (SailGP confirmed the circuit’s return to Saint-Tropez for Sept. 9-10), before returning to Bermuda in May 2024. The North American tour will continue at a Canadian venue to be named in June before concluding later that month again in San Francisco.
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SailGP is has grown its audience in the United States since the league’s first season in 2019, and its championship has been televised on CBS and CBS Sports every year so far. Like Formula 1’s Drive to Survive on Netflix, the league also produces a behind-the-scenes documentary series called Racing on the Edge on YouTube.
“We see such a tremendous opportunity, not just in the U.S., but globally, because of the affinity for speed sports right now,” Ben Johnson, SVP of strategy and commercial development of SailGP, said in a video interview. “People want to be close to the action. They want to be surrounded by friends and family, and they want to be in unique locations. We see ourselves as a one-of-a-kind experience when it comes to people’s global sports calendar.”
Larry Ellison, the founder of tech giant Oracle, is the majority owner of the SailGP organization while also owning six of the nine teams. Across three seasons, SailGP has grown from six teams and five events to nine teams and 11 events. Most recently, an expansion franchise led by David Palmer launched a $35 million raise via a tokenized fan offering to cover the $15 million expansion fee and fund racing operations for the first two seasons. The new to-be-named team will be the 10th to join the league.
During each two-day event, teams compete in F50 catamarans. Each boat is identical and costs about $4 million, and they are shipped across the globe in 40-foot containers. The league plans its global calendar to minimize its carbon footprint. The estimated cost per SailGP event is $5 million.
Mubadala joined the league as a sponsor for the third season of the race and in the upcoming San Francisco Mubadala Sail Grand Prix, the top three teams will race for that $1 million prize.
“We saw shared ethos in terms of environmental focus,” Johnson said of the partnership. “They’re one of the world’s largest investors in green and renewable technologies. We found their team to be forward thinking in terms of audience and potential.” SailGP’s other sponsors include Rolex, NEAR, Oracle, Cognizant and Kuehne+Nagel.
SailGP is looking to expand its schedule in the United States.
“Now that we’re able to race so close to shore in much smaller venues, we are looking at other cities in the U.S.,” Johnson said. “There’s a dozen right now that we’re in active conversations with looking for that next iconic experience, close to shore, close to audiences.”
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