After months of negotiations, Ainslie is set to join American team Oracle, the Cup defenders, but in an unusual move reflecting their keenness to have the world’s best sailor involved in their series, he has been given permission to set up Ben Ainslie Racing, an unsponsored campaign funded by Oracle boss Larry Ellison, but flying the British flag.
The scrapping of Sir Keith Mills’ Team Origin campaign in 2010, due to the lack of prospects over raising sponsorship, came as a major blow to Ainslie but his profile is likely to go stratospheric in 2012 which could flush out sufficient funds for a fully competitive campaign in the 35th America’s Cup.
Reports that Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic had been signed up as sponsors turned out to be premature but the company confirm they are still looking at Ainslie’s proposal since they support the idea of a British challenger.
So far only four teams, Oracle, Artemis, Luna Rossa and Emirates Team New Zealand, have paid the $200,000 deposit for the America’s Cup regatta, including the Louis Vuitton Cup, with the Kiwis the only team having to rely on commercial backing rather than a wealthy benefactor.
But 10 teams, including Ainslie’s, have signed up for the cheaper ACWS which has been designed as an exhibition series to revitalise interest in an event that was seriously damaged by the long winded legal wranglings between Ellison and his billionaire rival Ernesto Bertorelli.
Any suggestion that Ainslie’s campaign will develop into a fully fledged challenger campaign, funded by the defender, will raise serious questions of neutrality for Oracle, who are both defenders and organisers.
