The recent America's Cup regatta was far more than a sporting spectacle, it was a business success story for New Zealand, says Dunedin businessman Ian Taylor. Here, the man behind Animation Research offers insight and opinion on the campaign.
However in making comparisons between the All Blacks and Emirates Team New Zealand's accomplishments in the America's Cup, Otago Daily Times sports columnist Brent Edwards makes the same mistake so many other New Zealanders, including the Prime Minister, have made.
The America's Cup was no more a sporting event than Formula 1 is a car race. Both are technology showcases that are used to drive innovation, design and engineering to new heights, and this is exactly what the ETNZ America's Cup campaign has done for New Zealand.
There has been great a gnashing of teeth over the ''pouring of $36 million of taxpayers' money into this elitist sport for rich men'', so let's deal to that. To access the $36 million, Grant Dalton had to match each dollar with a minimum of $2 from external sources. In the end, Dalton raised $100 million, almost all of it from offshore. Then he spent the bulk of that money, 86% of it, in New Zealand.
ETNZ outsourced more than 130,000 hours of work in building its own two AC 72's to New Zealand-based companies.
In addition to that, most of the Luna Rossa AC 72 and both of the Oracle boats had major components built in New Zealand. These boats came in at around $10 million each.
Luna Rossa is estimated to have spent $20 million in New Zealand as a direct result of Dalton's efforts to get it involved in the cup.
ETNZ contracted 13 machine shops to manufacture thousands of custom-made parts for the AC 72s. At one stage, every five-axis milling machine in the greater Auckland area was under contract to either ETNZ or Luna Rossa.
As Dalton pointed out, during the major part of their build-up there was a network of more than 100 companies providing anything from baked beans to ropes to ETNZ. While waiting for Larry Ellison's protracted challenge for the America's Cup against Alinghi to be decided, Dalton raised a further $20 million dollars in external funding to put together a series of campaigns to keep his team together.
The Volvo Ocean Race campaign not only saw the building of a Volvo 70 boat by New Zealand-based Cookson Boat Builders (the boat eventually finished second in the event) but also a hugely successful stopover of the Volvo Race itself in Auckland itself.
Dalton then put together a TP 52 team for the world circuit (and another boat built in New Zealand) and went out and won it, twice. And finally, at the time ETNZ departed for San Francisco at the start of its America's Cup campaign, it had paid more than $22 million in PAYE and GST. That tax take does not include any PAYE or GST paid to the Government by any of those other 100 firms who were part of the network of companies involved, directly or indirectly, in the five-year long campaign for the America's Cup.
Oh, and as for elite rich guys! Well, that's what happens in the highest echelons of any sport. Do we really think that any of the All Blacks who played in that wonderful match last weekend are pressed for a dollar or two? Are they elite? Of course they are, and they, like the team at ETNZ, have earned that accolade by being the best in the world at what they do.
Can you compare what the All Blacks did last weekend for the New Zealand economy and its reputation as a smart, tech-savvy, design-driven country with what Dalton and his team did? I think not, and I doubt we would have to go upstairs to the video referee for the answer to that one.
