IMG’s Role in America’s Cup Marketing

In April 2022, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron announced that Barcelona will be the site of the 37th America’s Cup. The oldest competition in international sport will be contested in September or October of 2025.

The format of the race itself has a long-standing history: the previous running’s winner picks the venue and the time for the competition. Yacht clubs around the world submit their best racing ships and crews to compete in a series of trial matches to select the one boat that will challenge the “Auld Mug” defenders in the final. Meanwhile, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron will be hosting its own racing series to find the one homeland yacht to defend their title.

At the beginning of this international competition, the New York Yacht Club won the first twenty-five runnings, holding on to the Auld Mug for a total of 132 years. Australia’s Royal Perth Yacht Club broke the US’s win streak in September 1983 and suddenly found themselves in completely new territory – responsible for everything the NYYC had previously done to ensure the smooth sailing of the next competition.

Never having been in this position before, the Royal Perth Yacht Club (RPYC) had little knowledge of how to negotiate international broadcasting rights fees and sponsorship deals for what would become the 26th America’s Cup. Immediately upon returning home, the RPYC incorporated an organizing committee to operate on a business level on the club’s behalf.

By April of 1984, Australia’s Defence of the America’s Cup 1987 Pty. Ltd. had retained IMG as the “exclusive worldwide agent and representative for the ADAC in connection with certain commercial aspects of the America’s Cup Defence”. (View Exhibit 1) This contract is one of many pieces pertaining to the first successful challenger’s defense of the America’s Cup housed as part of the Mark H. McCormack Papers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

With two-and-a-half years from contract signing to yachts racing (the series was held during Australia’s summer months of January and February 1987), IMG started laying the foundation for later rights deals negotiations, both international and domestic, for the races. First, IMG had to convince the individual Australian television networks to work together to promote a united front. Ultimately, operating as a team would increase the bargaining power of IMG’s international deals and would grow revenues for everyone.

As the event drew near and with the Australian channels on board, Barry Frank and TWI (IMG’s production and rights deal negotiations arm of the company) started negotiating with potential international partners, specifically working in the US, Italy, France, the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Sweden, West Germany, and Switzerland. With a competition in the format of the America’s Cup, though, they were presented with a unique set-up for the rights deals: what happens when a network with a potential challenger signs a large-scale deal, but then doesn’t make the final racing series?

The solution was simple. The networks could sign multi-tiered television rights contracts, with differing price points outlined in writing should their yachts continue in the series, as shown in this proposed deal with TVNZ. (View Exhibit 2) There’s also language in the proposal for the scenario where the boat from New Zealand doesn’t make the finals, but the network would still like to broadcast the series.

With this final contract signed in September 1986, mere months before the finals, IMG had completed its pre-event partnership and advisory role for the 26th America’s Cup. All that was left was for the event itself to happen, hopefully with a successful Australian defense of the Cup.

If the Auld Mug stayed with Royal Perth Yacht Cup, then IMG and the RPYC would continue to work together, as agreed upon by IMG’s founder, Mark McCormack, and Noel Robins, Managing Director of ADAC back in December 1985. (View Exhibit 3) Unfortunately, the two parties did not get this chance, as the New York Yacht Club won the Auld Mug back in 1987.