WYRF transcript final v2 - The Daily Sail

however many committees, isn’t
the thing which is going to get us
to the next phase in this sport – I
mean never, because it doesn’t
work like that. And that is where
the role of the commercial part of
the sport is going to be critical for
the next few years, because we
can get actually on with things,
take risks, do the wrong thing
sometimes as well and still survive
and not actually need to have
perhaps quite such a democratic
process, which is probably not the
best process to deal with the kind
of challenges we’ve got in the next
few years.
Peter Montgomery: A lot of
ISAF-bashing here, Goran – it’s
like asking you to dance and play
in the orchestra at the same time!
I know you have got a difficult
challenge. Christophe - what’s
your thoughts on that, just what
Knut and Mark have talked about?
Christophe Baudry: I
completely agree on that. I’ll just
take one example. We should
have negotiated with Knut over
the provider of the game because
we would be richer now! I
completely agree that there is a
lot of work to do about a way to
film on board, the place of
cameras, those kind of things
which seem to be so simple, but
we have to work together. Also
we have to work together on the
schedule, because this year we are
in the same year with the Volvo
Ocean Race and the Vendee Race.
I saw that with the next one it will
not be the case, but we have to
work together I think.
Peter Montgomery: Right are
there are any more questions just
before we break for lunch? Ah
sorry yes, can we get a
microphone there please?
Question from the floor - Rune
Jacobsen, Boston Consulting
Group: First of all I’d like to say
that I think it’s is a very, very good
discussion and I think lots of key
issues and challenges have been
mentioned here. My name is Rune
Jacobsen, I am a partner with the
BCG, supporting Knut and the
management of Volvo Ocean
Race, trying to move the course
forward. It’s is a question about -
what is really going to drive, what
is going to make a difference now
- and again you have been
touching into a lot of different
things here.
If we go into the past now and
look into the America’s Cup and
also the Volvo Ocean Race, we
see that it has mainly been the
corporate hospitality that has
been driving the revenues. What
you did mention Knut and you had
a lot of nice pictures of the Puma
boat there, but this time Puma,
one of the strongest global
consumer brands, is in the race
and they are doing a fantastic job
in terms of marketing and
branding is.
So my question is - I think that is
something that will change the
Volvo Ocean Race and also the
future of sailing going forwards - if
we are able to attract the best
global brands, the best companies
that know how to market, that
know how to communicate - and
if you think about that from
different perspectives: the
consumer brands attracting the
kids, attracting the young people.
So my question is to Christophe
and to Mark – you have touched
upon it - from your perspective,
how do you best attract those
consumer brands in the future?
Christophe Baudry: I think
that the exposure of the Vendee
Globe race supports that for
French companies like that: it is
evident, obvious that that is the
place to be. You can see that
Groupe Bel, for example, on the
Vendee Globe, they didn’t hesitate
to come on this race. For global
brands today, it’s as I said before,
we have to do more in an
international way to push.
Mark Turner: I think actually
the Vendee Globe is very much a
consumer brand event - different
to perhaps a lot of other events
that do exist - and it has
traditionally been that. The size of
the company is growing over time
as the budgets have increased. Its
ceiling is actually where it is now
in that it has to become more of a
global property in order for the
budgets, if they were to continue
to increase, which has got a
natural curve that you probably
can’t stop. Then it has to do
more to recoup that, but today
the Vendee Globe is full of
consumer brands, but perhaps not
the global ones that we are all
used to seeing.
I think generally it just comes back
every time to the same points:
we’ve got to make the sport more
sexy, we’ve got to make it appeal
more to young people, we’ve got
to break all the rules, forget the
taboos - we’ve got to change it.
Take kite surfing - kite surfing is
the coolest thing. it is part of the
same gig, and there are various
projects going on where we might
see some radical change in how
kite surfing actually integrates with
the sailing from what we are used
to seeing.
We have got to appeal to the
youngsters. I had a really
interesting discussion with Sid
Bensala who runs the Dubai
Ocean Marine Club. They have in
Dubai a lot of funding behind
them, managed to get big youth
programs going, lots of young kids
– great. (We had some good
thoughts on that earlier from Tim
Coventry. There is some really
great work going on.) Do you
know what he said? We had all
those kids sailing, we had 600
Optimists, we had kids being
picked up from school and they
get to 15 years old – not sexy
enough, we never see them again.
Olympic Games? Doesn’t work
for them. They can’t see a future
career – they can’t see a career
after the Olympics – because only
a few people get to make a career
out of the Olympics, only the
very, very top people.
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