Industry Insights: Innovation at the 34th America’s Cup
Craig Thompson shares his experience as the CEO of the 34th America’s Cup
Ten years ago, in November of 2010 I opened the doors of the America’s Cup Event Authority offices in downtown San Francisco. As CEO I had to set up the events, coordinate the overall interests of the competing teams, and manage all the commercial affairs.
In order to bring the Cup to a wider, and younger audience, and make it more commercially viable, we engineered a complete overhaul of this prestigious 160 year-old event. We introduced dangerously fast catamarans, that required very fit and young athletes. We drew the course in San Francisco bay so that hundreds of thousands could watch from shore rather than only from boats out on the ocean. We put mic’s on all the sailors and cameras on all the boats — we called it “sailing from the inside out”. We developed course lines for television viewers for the first time using radical new technology implemented from helicopters. This new technology inspired me to start focusing on technology for sport after I left the America’s Cup. Eventually in 2019 I created Mindspring Capital — a sport tech VC.
The America’s Cup World Series was developed with events every year leading up to the America’s Cup in order to give each team a chance to master their radical new boats and fine tune their teams. We introduced the America’s Cup Healthy Oceans project to do our part to save the world’s oceans, and I developed the marketing slogan, “the Best Sailors on the Fastest Boats” to truly reflect what the America’s Cup is all bout.
These innovations coupled with the most dramatic final race in Americas Cup history , delivered one of the most visible and exciting America’s Cups of all time in San Francisco bay in the summer of 2013. I think we made a dent in the America’s Cup universe, and I am proud about that.
Brought to you by: Craig Thompson, Founder and Partner at Mindspring Capital.
