Prof Steve Jackson, who specialises in the socio-cultural analysis of sport, said teams - including Team New Zealand - were representing private yacht clubs and corporate brands.
''Most professional sport these days is a vehicle for the promotion of corporate brands, and the America's Cup is almost the ultimate of that, in the sense that it is portrayed as nation versus nation, but really it is private yacht clubs and private corporations against private corporations,'' Prof Jackson said.
The rules of the event meant teams represented individual yacht clubs and not countries. For instance, Team New Zealand represented the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron.
''Although the event is portrayed as an international event - nations against nations - it actually has nothing to do with nations in the sense of the actual rules,'' he said.
Their rules also did not require crew members to be a citizen of the nation they ''supposedly'' represented, he said.
Prof Jackson still encouraged people to enjoy Team New Zealand's success and noted that of all the teams it had the highest proportion of crew from its home nation.
However, the fact Team New Zealand was a ''private enterprise'' was something that should be considered when the Government made future decisions about whether to support the team financially.
''Investment in education and healthcare is going down and yet they have got the money to put into a private enterprise that is Team New Zealand ... $36 million would go a long way in health and education,'' Prof Jackson said.
If cup organisers wanted to give more legitimacy to the ''nation against nation'' tag, they should consider introducing nationality rules in future regattas, he said.
A nationality rule has been pushed by Team New Zealand managing director Grant Dalton and would probably be introduced should the cup be brought back to New Zealand.
The New York Times reported yesterday the issue was a bone of contention between Team New Zealand and Oracle, which had taken a ''global approach to talent recruitment'', with only one of its most recent starting 11-man crew from the United States.
In comparison, nine of 11 Team New Zealand's starting crew members were New Zealanders. Nationality rules were in place between 1980 and 2003 - they were abolished by Alinghi for the 2007 Cup in Valencia - but teams found ways to get around the rules.
