Plotting the America’s Cup future

On the sixth day of the 37th America’s Cup Match, defender Team New Zealand completed their victory over Challenger of Record INEOS Britannia in Barcelona, Spain. In this report by the Kiwi team, they reflect on the event and the future:

Three days after winning the America’s Cup, Emirates Team New Zealand CEO Grant Dalton provided insight into the early stages of a vision of continued growth, given early media speculation about future venue opportunities.

“The Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup has confirmed the America’s Cup as one of the unique properties in international sport,” reports Dalton. “It is our objective to build on the success of AC37 and continue the growth we have been seeing since we first won the America’s Cup in 2017. We are looking to increase audience and engagement across different regions, territories, and demographics.”

Through the hosting of the event in Barcelona, the America’s Cup has seen significant growth across many fronts via the success of the Puig Women’s America’s Cup, the Unicredit Youth America’s Cup as well as the AC Sailing E-Sport World Championship and taking huge strides in the innovation and development of sustainable marine power with the hydrogen powered foiling chase boats.

“As a result of these successes, we know we have a number of valuable properties that we wish to continue building,” said Dalton. “We are keeping an open mind on how best to achieve this with a venue, or different venues, that can super charge the 38th America’s Cup with increased global footprint, more teams and increased overall expansion opportunities. It would be difficult to expand the number of teams based on the available infrastructure space in Barcelona.

“Furthermore, from initial discussions with teams, there is a collective desire to see continued commercial growth of the America’s Cup, in line with what is seen in other leading global sports.”

The Louis Vuttion 37th America’s Cup event attracted 2.56 million attendees between August 22 and October 19, over the 59 days of the event. Attendees and people enjoying the event ranged from the local community, national, and international visitors coming into Barcelona from within Spain and around the world.

The attendees were counted on a daily basis by the Host Partners Group with ACE Barcelona SL and the Host Partners across the America’s Cup venues: Race Village and Fanzones, Team bases, Hospitality, as well as 243 superyachts, on water guests, and on-water race viewing experiences.

“These numbers are well aligned with those that were projected and estimated before the event,” noted Dalton. “From initial indications, we know we are well on track to reaching our growth targets of a 50% increase on total broadcast and media audience from the 36th America’s Cup.”

After such a success in Barcelona in 2024, the future looks bright.