Succes story
With 13 events, 12 teams, sold-out venues, and over 20 million TV viewers worldwide, the Rolex SailGP Championship is now a dazzling success story.
Hosted in a variety of cities, this annual global championship is raced on fast high-performance one-design catamarans. The races are short and fast-paced, making for engaging TV that pays off. When the project launched in 2019 with Financial support from Larry Ellison, Russell Coutts, and his right-hand man, SailGP’s Managing Director, Andy Thompson, such swift growth could never have been predicted. In season 1, the league had 6 teams and counted 5 events. Today, SailGP has grown from 10 to 250 full-time employees. Now in its 5th season, the Rolex SailGP Championship features 13 events on five continents and showcases 12 international teams. Exponential growth. “Everything is moving much faster than we had hoped,” says Coutts. At the outset, our live audience target was 5 million viewers. This has now grown to 21.1 million. This is by far the largest audience for a sailing race. SailGP’s key strengths are its fiercely competitive championship and the regularity of the events.” And an action-packed show. With the markers located just a few metres from the stands, the shoreside spectators get to see quite a performance. It has all the ingredients needed to attract more than the usual regatta fans. Russel Coutts
wanted to make sailing something everyone could enjoy, not just a sport for a small group of experts. The five-time winner of the America’s Cup aimed to make the sport popular by creating a product that would appeal to a wide audience, with great TV and commercial potential. “There were no annual professional circuits in sailing. Russell and I managed the America’s Cup for several years and came to realise that retaining partners and sponsors was challenging, due to the shifting governance with each new winner, and unpredictable budget increases,” explains Andy Thompson, Managing Director of SailGP.
We wanted to create a regular championship based on the concept of commercial ownership that creates long-term value similar to that seen in most professional sports. We looked at what was being done elsewhere and introduced a franchise system.” These franchises are currently priced at 50 million dollars. The goal was also to manage costs effectively to enable the league to develop sustainably. “We set a budget cap of 10 million dollars per team, per season,” says Thompson. The aim was to provide each team with equal rights.”
And to attract the best sailors in the world. The prize money is substantial: 12.8 million dollars per season. All of this is made possible by the support of sponsors. In November 2024, SailGP welcomed Rolex as the title sponsor of the championship. “Rolexis both a sponsor of the league and the Geneva event. They signed a 10-year sponsorship with us. This is a driving feature of SailGP’s growth,” continues Russell Coutts. We have long-term agreements with our sponsors. This allows us to develop the league together over the long term. We are proud to count the exceptional brand Rolex among our sponsors. We also collaborate with other well-known brands such as Oracle, Emirates and DP World. Now that is what you call a success story!
