SailGP Looking to Include 2 Teams, Opens Tender Process
Boat racing league SailGP is seeking to add 2 growth groups for the 2026 season, announcing Monday it has opened up the tender procedure for interested groups.
The additional groups will bring the league size to 14. The league hasn’t said what nations or areas the brand-new teams will represent, though existing owners have actually suggested the league would be targeting Asia and the Middle East. The league has 7 European teams, 3 Western Hemisphere teams and franchises in New Zealand and Australia. A crowdsourcing effort to drift a Caribbean and Bermuda team in 2023 stopped working.
Details of the process weren’t publicly disclosed Monday, with the league referring interested parties to Deloitte’s U.K. Sports Business Group for details. SailGP also suggested in a news release the tender procedure will likewise cover the mechanics of purchasing a stake in existing teams. Bidding for the expansion teams will be accepted through mid-August with choice completed by early September.
SailGP was begun in 2019 by billionaire Larry Ellison and sailor Russell Coutts, at first with league-owned groups. SailGP has been offering its teams to 3rd parties, which offers a basis on the prospective cost for expansion teams.
The Italy SailGP team was sold last month at a $45 million valuation, managing partner Assia Grazioli-Venier told Sportico. The fee for the Brazil group added for the current season hasn’t been credibly reported, while in 2023 Marc Lasry’s Avenue Capital bought control of Team U.S.A. at a $35 million evaluation.
Regards to winning the Caribbean and Bermuda team 2 years ago consisted of a $15 million growth fee and two years of business expenses banked, for a total of $35 million. David Palmer, founder of Bernoulli Locke, which looked for to raise the funds for the Caribbean team, claimed at the time its cost was lower than other SailGP valuations since of the bad media and in-person markets of the area.
SailGP indicated the tender needs to include strategies to run through 2030, noting it authorized all existing groups’ strategies to run through that year, including under an expense cap and central revenue distribution system.