WYRF transcript final v2 - The Daily Sail

sailing? What are the sport’s main
assets? And we start with James
Boyd please.
James Boyd – Well good
afternoon everyone to this
amazing event. It is fantastic to see
everyone here. I suppose listening
to this morning’s debate there
have been a tremendous number
of occasions where you were
thinking ‘well, I was about to say
that’.
I suppose one of the biggest
messages which I can give, as
somebody who is involved with
the media, is that most general
media – we obviously get deeply
involved in the sports side of what
we do, but really in terms of
general media its largely disaster
which makes the headlines, which
is obviously a very sad thing and
unfortunately sports tend to be
very much relegated to the sports
pages and its very, very rare it
actually breaks out.
The most notable exception in the
UK has obviously been the Ellen
MacArthur phenomenon, when
she finished her Vendee Globe
and also when she subsequently
did her singlehanded round the
world non-stop record attempt -
she was literally on the front page
of the media for two or three
weeks, which seems much more
than any regular sport events,
even possibly the amazing
achievements of Team GBR in the
last couple of Olympics. So just
because we have an amazing
sports event, whether it the
Olympics up to offshore or
whatever it is, you can’t guarantee
you are going to get coverage.
Knut was giving the example
earlier on of how, when they
started leg two of the VOR it
happened to coincide with this
piracy act in Somalia and that
immediately elevated the Volvo
Ocean Race into the news pages
rather than the sports pages and I
think that not nearly enough is
done within our sport generally to
actually try and promote it from
the sports pages into the news
pages. So that’s my main point
today.
Bernard Schopfer: Thanks
James, Cliff perhaps you want to
answer the question a bit more
precisely - what are the sports
assets? What is the media value of
our sport?
Cliff Webb – That’s a tough
question isn’t it? I think from my
perspective - I have been working
on the World Match Racing Tour
for the last few years and I think
undoubtedly there the assets are
the sailors obviously. I think you
are absolutely right, James, that we
need to build the characters in the
sport and get these out into the
general public. On the Tour its
effectively one design racing, the
boats are all the same and so you
can’t go on about the big boats
and the glamour of the boats and
the money that’s involved and so
on. And we haven’t got offshore
racing. These guys do an amazing
job with the offshore races. They
certainly are singlehanded, these
are the stars of the sport - we’ve
got to promote the sailors.
As to values – well, its difficult to
measure. You can believe
whatever statistics you want that
people conjure up: how many
million households view whatever
television stations and so on.
Using the same technique that
everyone else uses, we are looking
at somewhere around the region
of $10 million per World Tour
event at the moment for the
match racing. And that’s not a bad
return. But if we get down into
the real details of it, it will be
interesting to see how the
advertisers view that who
advertise around the programming
and so on. So I think it’s a very
broad question. Personally I think
the events are an asset in
themselves, if they are run well, if
they are organised well, if the
conditions are great - that’s a
fantastic asset. But for me it’s the
sailors - they are the stars of the
show and we have got to build
those guys up.
Bernard Schopfer: Thank you
Cliff. Richard?
Richard Simmonds – Thank
you Bernard. I guess we were
here about a month ago and in
this building with about 150
broadcasters from around the
world who come to an annual
show called Sportel. And it is
where you promote what you
have got. And what we’ve got is
the sport of sailing. And I made
some notes - its quite interesting,
what people at that show thought
the assets are in this sport. And
some of this may ring some bells
with, what Mark Turner was
saying, in particular.
“Great pictures, inspirational
people, compelling narrative” that
was Sky. “Jaw dropping images,
powerful, inspirational.”
How about this one? “Hard to
understand, small audience.”
That’s worth noting, isn’t it? And
that’s from an Asian channel.
“Sailing is what we want to use to
attract top end sponsorship” -
another Asian channel.
What people come to us, when
we are talking about this sport, is
the people, is the stories and I
think what Knut was saying, I
could not agree more with the
concept of the Volvo Ocean Race.
Sailing has got some extraordinary
stories and only recently have they
started to come out. Technology
is helping and technology is an
asset, but let’s be careful, because
technology can almost kill the
mystery.
If we use technology, one of the
greatest assets, too much, some of
the surprise, some of the
inspiration/perception will
disappear, it will all seem too easy.
So to summarise I think you might
see a trend here: this sport is
about people. It is our combined
jobs to make those people, the
stars they truly are. Very few get
there. Technology is a tool - don’t
over use it.
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