America Not in Next America’s Cup
It feels as if interest in the America’s Cup has been slowly ebbing since Oracle Team USA’s amazing come-from-behind victory on San Francisco Bay in 2013. It appears headed for a new low, as the only possible US challenger, New York Yacht Club’s American Magic, has decided not to race in the 38th America’s Cup. At present the only two teams confirmed for the summer 2027 event are the defender, Team New Zealand, and the Challenger of Record, England’s Ben Ainslee-led Athena Racing.
“After extensive engagement with the Defender, Challenger of Record, and fellow teams, we’ve concluded that the present structure does not provide the framework for American Magic to operate a highly competitive and financially sustainable campaign for the 38th America’s Cup,” said Doug DeVos, team principal of American Magic. “We care deeply about the America’s Cup and what it represents. However, for a team committed to long-term excellence, alignment around financial viability and competitive performance is essential. At this time, we don’t believe those conditions are in place for American Magic to challenge.”
American Magic still has a foiling base in Pensacola, Florida, where it plans to maintain its involvement in high-performance racing and will continue developing athletes, technology, advanced manufacturing and participation in international events. This could include a team in SailGP, and they are involved with bringing the new ClubSwan 28 to market. They also plan to continue their support for international racing campaigns and supporting US Olympic sailors.
Obviously, America has been central to the America’s Cup since it first took the Cup home to the New York Yacht Club after John Cox Stevens won it in 1851. The foiling era has raised the cost and shifted the allegiance of former America’s Cup fans. The modern Cup has gained some new followers with its high-speed thrill-seeking classes, but it’s lost a lot of the traditional fan base. While we’d love to see America win the Cup again, we’d also love to see the event held in sailboats with sailors running around the decks hoisting and trimming sails.
Beyond the defender and challenger of record, three other teams appear possible, including Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli (ITA) and K-Challenge/Orient Express (FRA). There’s a slim chance America could get back into it with a challenge from Riptide Racing. One hopes Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli will get in so they can race in their home waters of Naples, Italy.
In our own biased view, one of the big hopes we have for international sailing events is that they gain attention from the non-sailing public in a way that inspires more people to take up sailing. Measured against popular video bloggers, local sailing schools, community sailing programs or the Golden Globe Race, we’d guess the America’s Cup and SailGP are far behind in attracting new sailing participants. The events make money by having spectators, not sailors, so growing the number of people sailing is very low on the priority list.
We don’t have any evidence, but we’d guess the era of 12 Meters did attract more new sailors than today’s foiling events, but we have to admit, the data would be hard to come by.
P.S. American Magic’s announcement came out at the end of October, and we’re afraid it didn’t really catch our attention until just now. Are we the only ones who missed it? How many of you are trying to keep up with the America’s Cup?
You are not the only ones who missed the announcement, I stopped being interested in it after the novelty and the foiling boats, to me it’s not really sailing the way we all do it. I focus on the distance and round the world races now because I can relate to what they are doing. Bring back real sailboats like the 12 meters and do non match racing with international entries and crews.
The foilers have left me behind. This is not my kind of sailboat.
Each year it seems the Cup becomes more focused on making money rather than continuing the tradition of sailboat racing. NZ’s departure from their home waters made this perfectly clear. And now, I think, they will pay the price for the poor direction they chose.
I did see the sad announcement, Sailing World, I believe. I made the trip to Barcelona in 2024 to see the America’s Cup racing. A sad commentary is that I went during the round robin series so I could be sure to see American Magic, as I didn’t expect them to make the finals. Another sad item, many of the compounds were open to visitors, but you had to pay to go into the American Magic building. Very off-putting. And to make matters worse, if you watched it on TV in the US, you had to pay ESPN, i believe it was free for the rest of the world! I watched it on the Australian feed. I wish they would go back to non-foiling racing, but the races need to be shorter. I remember watching 12 meters taking hours for a race, even I got board sometimes. Alas, things change.