America's Cup in San Francisco: The event that nobody really wants
Skift Take
A billion in visitor spending for a boat race? Really? There are events, and there are "events" -- like a World Series or Final Four -- that drive real visitors. A boat chase featuring ships sponsored by watch companies and owned by billionaires is not in the latter groups.
So much for smooth sailing. With less than three months before the start of the America's Cup races in San Francisco Bay, locals are lining up lawyers, insisting on written contracts about concert hours and signing petitions to shame Larry Ellison into covering the city's bills.
San Francisco Supervisor John Avalos, a ready critic of sailing's Super Bowl, made international headlines when he said he felt "(expletive) played."
The backlash is sending America's Cup organizers scrambling to explain themselves at community meetings and forcing them to make concessions while in the final planning stages for the international sporting event that will be in San Francisco this summer for the first time.
"People are talking about the demise of the event that's three months from happening," said Jane Sullivan, San Francisco's liaison with the America's Cup. The same thing happened in London before the Olympics, she said, and "it ended up being a huge event and everyone was happy."
Still, the uneasy relationship played out in an awkward exchange this month between America's Cup Event Authority CEO Ste
