One of the fastest sports on the planet stops in New York City this weekend.
Not, it is not Formula 1. Despite years of speculation about an F1 race in New York City, the grid is silent this week. Nor is it IndyCar or NASCAR.
No, the sport that stops in New York City this weekend is none other than SailGP, which is not just one of the fastest sports on the planet, but one of the fastest-growing sports leagues in the world. Just this week, ahead of the New York Sail Grand Prix, the United States SailGP announced a new partnership with Amazon, as the retailer comes aboard as the Official Retail Partner of the team. That partnership speaks not only to the present of SailGP, but also the future of the series.
Ahead of this weekend’s New York City Grand Prix, SB Nation spoke exclusively with Mike Buckley about the series. Buckley wears several hats, as not only is he the CEO and Co-Owner of the US SailGP team, but he is also on the boat each week as the team’s Strategist.
SailGP, explained
As our conversation began, I opened with a rather basic question.
What is SailGP?
“SailGP is a professional sailing league that was founded by Larry Ellison and Russell Coutts, and we race high-speed catamarans at all over the world, 14 races around the world. There’s 12 national teams, so each team represents a country. It can only be one team per country,” began Buckley.
“Our boats go 60-plus miles an hour, powered by the wind, which is kind of an incredible feat, and the whole concept is to build a commercially sustainable, sports league and bring racing, sailboat racing closer to the fans.”
Part of the concept behind SailGP is to bring the sport to some of the most iconic locales on the planet, including this week in New York City.
“So we race right off these iconic cities, so we’ll race in New York City and you could throw a rock from the financial district or Governor’s Island or the Statue of Liberty,” described Buckley. “That’s how close we’ll be to all those iconic destinations, iconic locations.”
Another concept behind the series is to bring it closer to the fans, taking sailing from behind the curtain to the main stage.
“Sailing for forever has been kind of out of sight from the fans,” began Buckley. “You can’t really watch it.
“You could watch it a little bit on TV, but now all of a sudden you can come and you can see these massive machines flying through the water, hydrofoiling.
“Our wings are almost 100 feet tall, so it’s a pretty extraordinary experience.”
Buckley has been sailing almost his entire life. He picked up the sport in high school and has been sailing professionally for two decades.
But his current roles with the US SailGP team are the next evolution in an already legendary career.
“It’s the best racing. It’s the best of the best,” said Buckley when I asked him about his journey to SailGP. “Everybody in my sport wants to be there, so it’s an easy thing to want to be part of.
“But as I get towards the end of my professional racing career, I’ve always looked at these other athletes and kind of studied what they have done and what the LeBrons of the world are talking about.
“Wanting to be more than an athlete, right?
“How do you scale your business if your business relies on you just playing a game?
“So [I] had been thinking about that for a really long time. And, there were some rumblings that they were going to start selling franchises and so I put a group together to buy the US team in November 2023.”
That has led to the different hats Buckley wears throughout the week,
“I wear a couple of hats right now. I’m one of the two co-owners, myself and Ryan McKillen. Ryan was the third employee at Uber. He’s a really close friend of mine. And I’m also the CEO and then I race on the boat as well, so I wear a couple of different hats.”
Buckley knows that his time on the boat itself is not forever, and these different hats will allow him to remain in a competitive environment when he gets off the catamaran for good.
“My time racing is not forever.
“I’m probably fairly addicted to competing, and being able to take a step into the ownership side and the management side allows me to do that when I’m not out on the water, with partners and media and just growing our business, growing our fan base and things like that.
“It’s not easy. You get a lot of, a lot of ‘nos’ every day, and I really love that.
“It’s not too different than competing on the water.”
Building a big TV product
Our conversation turned to the growth of the series, and the front-row seat Buckley has enjoyed for that success.
In Buckley’s view, that growth starts with building an incredible television product, one that the average sports fan can identify with almost immediately.
“Larry and Russell built an incredible TV product, right? That was one of their first goals,” began Buckley. “If we’re gonna scale this, we have to have people behind their televisions watching it.”
But to get the average sports fan — or average race fan — to not just tune in but to stay, SailGP needed to make the sport translatable for that base.
“How do we make this easy for the average race fan, not the average sailor, the average racing fan, to understand?
“So they’ve got high-quality graphic overlays and commentating so that when you’re watching, if you’re watching football on a Sunday and the game ends and all of a sudden SailGP pops up, the average football fan can watch it and understand”
What helps with getting that particular fan to stay tuned in is some familiar technology.
“[SailGP has] very similar technology to the yellow first down line and the NFL, we have the kind of same thing on the screen. So TV product has, has been a huge part of that [growth],” continued Buckley.
TV growth is one thing, but as Buckley noted during our discussion, traveling to some of the most iconic cities in the world, and racing right in the heart of those locations, is another huge draw for the series.
“And then going to these huge cities around the world and having our race be right in their city,” continued Buckley. “When we’re in New York, we’re right in the city. When we go to Saint-Tropez, we’re right off the village.
“When we go to Dubai, we’re right off the city. Abu Dhabi the city. Sydney. Auckland. All these places, we’re just, we’re right in amongst it,” added Buckley. “You don’t have to drive an hour to come watch our race.”
Ultimately, the eyeballs have followed the product on television.
“This year so far on CBS we’re averaging over 800,000 viewers,” started Buckley, which compares favorably to some other major professional sports. “To compare that to the National Hockey League [which is] half a million. Formula One [is 1.1 million], Major League Baseball’s a million.
“We’re certainly not their scale overall, but on a kind of per race basis, per game basis, we’re right in the conversation.
“Which is awesome.”
How SailGP stands out
In the days leading up to my conversation with Buckley, my preparation kept bringing me back to one phrase: “SailGP is F1 on the water.”
At first blush, one might understand the comparison. Beyond the fact that both SailGP and F1 are a racing series, F1 has seen an explosion of popularity in recent years, spurred on by the success of the Netflix docuseries Drive to Survive. Now the series makes three stops in the United States each year, with a race in Miami, a second race in Austin, and a third race in Las Vegas.
However, in Buckley’s mind, SailGP more than stands on its own, and with good reason.
“I think it’s the easiest comparison, certainly F1 has enormous scale,” started Buckley when I offered that comparison.
“I also think that SailGP stands on its own two legs, right?
“We don’t need to be Formula One on the water. We’re SailGP and that’s good enough.”
The CEO did admit, however, that it was a nice comparison to hear, given F1’s recent success. And he outlined how that success has caught the attention of some of the biggest names in F1.
“I mean the comparison is certainly nice to hear, and we hear it a lot. I was actually at F1 in Miami. I’m a huge F1 fan and I ran into some of the team principals and even the CEO [Stefano Domenicali] and they all kind of gave praise to the growth of SailGP I was blown away by that, right?
“Those guys, they’re busy, they’re extremely successful. I don’t know any of them personally, but Drive to Survive says they don’t hand out a ton of compliments to a ton of people,” continued Buckley. “So to hear them acknowledge what’s going on in our ecosystem was, yeah, it was really nice to hear.”
While the compliments from the Zak Browns and Christian Horners of the world are one thing, another way Buckley measures the success of SailGP is through the other names that not just appreciate the sport’s growth but put their dollars behind the series. From investors to partners, SailGP has demonstrated tremendous success in that area over the years.
We started with some of the investors who have joined the US Sail GP team as financial backers.
“I think that we have an absolutely ridiculous cap table, right, with, Avenue Capital as our lead investor and Issa Rae, and DeAndre Hopkins, and Jozy Altidore and a bunch of other epic people,” started Buckley. “What I think is unique is all of them invested because they believed in our business. I think when you look at a lot of different investments in the world, when you see athletes and celebrities, a lot of them get free equity.
“That’s not the case here, right?
“They believe in what we’re building.
“They like the fact that we’re the US team and there’s only one of those.”
Something else that helps attract those backers is the potential SailGP offers. As Buckley explained to me, the series has a highly engaged fan base, that offers a huge “opportunity” for SailGP.
“I think the other thing investors like is … looking at teams and leagues that have very high fan engagement, that’s not yet monetized. ”So it’s not selling a dream of, ‘[H]ey, we can build this big fan base and we can get this TV product,’ it’s, we have it, but today we’re not actually receiving any money from it.
“That gap is opportunity.”
We then zoomed out and looked at some of the other corporate partners that have joined SailGp both on the series side, and the team side.
“What’s really exciting is to see the level of partners coming in,” added Buckley. ”Rolex becoming the title partner of the league, right? Rolex has been a huge Formula One partner for a long time, and to see them come in and become the title partner of the league, that is a really validating moment.
“For us on the team side, we have Tommy Hilfiger, and Red Bull, and T-Mobile, and AG1. We’re about to announce another huge partner next week. [Note: That is the Amazon deal referenced above],” continued Buckley. “And even some of the other teams, JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank, and Emirates, these are big brands that do a ton of due diligence before they’re doing multi-million dollar deals, and to see that happening is very encouraging.”
There is also something else that helps SailGP stand out: Diversity, inclusion, and sustainability. As Buckley explained to me, these are not just “buzzwords,” but rather foundational principles.
“We’re also one of the only coed professional sports leagues in the world, and I think that’s a unique story that hasn’t really been told yet,” outlined Buckley.
“When Ryan and I bought the team, we did it with the most diverse ownership group in the history of our sport, not the history of SailGP, the history of our sport.
“So diversity, inclusivity, all that sort of stuff, they’re not just buzzwords. That’s something that, that we believe in.”
Buckley then highlighted that not only are these foundational principles, but they also offer a competitive advantage for the series.
“We believe it’s a competitive advantage,” continued Buckley. “The fact that I can pick up the phone and call Issa and ask her her perspective on media and brand deals, like, that is a massive competitive advantage.
“On the sustainability side, our playing field is the ocean,” Buckley reminded me.
“That is something that really no one else can say, and I think that’s a heck of a story to be told by a partner, in the future, right?
“We get to battle Mother Nature, and that’s pretty unique.”
Answering reader questions
Something else that is unique is the reader base at SB Nation.
While many of my readers come to the website for NFL or Formula 1 news, I found on social media several readers with a true passion for SailGP.
They shared with me some questions they wanted me to pass along, and Buckley was more than willing to address each of them. We started with a question about how the sport is attracting new fans to SailGP, including those who might have tuned into events such as the America’s Cup.
“Obviously, America’s Cup is very different, has a great tradition, but only happens every roughly four years, and that makes it very difficult to have consistent fan engagement,” started Buckley. “SailGP is always on, right?
“With all these races around the world, we get to go in person and meet new fans, new potential fans in these cities and towns around the world.
“I think the big thing that is gonna be kind of our next milestone and step into real true fan engagement will be unlocking the people of Sail GP, right?”
This is where Buckley drew an F1 comparison of his own.
“We have a great TV product. We have a great game day experience, but now we need to unlock the personalities of the people, right? The Christian Horners, the Zak Browns, the Toto Wolffs, the Max Verstappens, the Lewis Hamiltons, right?
“Fans love to love or love to hate the players, and either one is a fan. So that’s what we need to unlock in our sport. Sailing forever has been fairly guarded, very conservative, and SailGP is bold.
“So yeah, excited to kind of see what the future looks like there.”
The next question focused on Buckley’s success in “bringing big names to the table as investors,” as previously discussed. How has he been able to bring those companies and individuals aboard?
Authenticity, according to Buckley.
“I think authenticity, and that’s kind of how I start out any conversation, right, with a commercial partner or a potential investor,” Buckley began.
“If I tell you what we have and listen to what you have, and we talk straight with each other, [you’ve] got a really good chance to do something, right?
“If it’s not authentic. It’s just not gonna work.”
The next few questions focused on the US SailGP team specifically, and the team’s season to date. As the grid heads to New York City the US SailGP team sits 11th in the table, three points of GER Deutsche Bank.
Asked what part of the team needs the most work, Buckley began with “on the water” performance.
“I would say, you know, our on-the-water performance. I mean, that’s something that’s really, really important, and you need the commercial partners to be able to build a sustainable foundation to do the things that you want to do,” started Buckley.
“One of the things that’s really difficult about SailGP is there’s virtually no training time during the season. So similar to F1, the cars, the boats, they’re just going from race to race. So the only way that you can improve is by studying the data and the video, the game video, in between races.”
However, SailGP does have one advantage.
All 12 teams share their data.
Like F1, SailGP is filled with data. But where SailGP differs from F1 is that each of the 12 teams share their data, so they can learn from what the others are doing right, and where the others might be falling behind.
“I think that the next big innovation for the teams that are at the back of the grid is to leverage technology,” outlined Buckley. “So, we get about five billion data points per day on our boat, and 60 billion roughly collectively among the 12 teams.
“One of the differences between F1 and SailGP is that we have access to all the teams’ data, so you can see what the best team did that day, you can see what they did a year ago, you can see what they did three years ago on a specific day.
However, finding a way to use all that data has been a challenge, one that Buckley believes could open the door to the sport’s next big partner.
“You can imagine how hard it is to properly analyze 60 billion data points, so we are looking for a partner to help us with that, and the story behind that, we think, is going to be pretty sensational.”
The next questions focused on the growth of the SailGP schedule with a pitch for two specific additions to the calendar: Newport, Rhode Island and Vancouver, British Columbia.
“I think the goal is for the calendar to always be expanding, right? ”Logistically, there’s a limit on how many races you can have, but we’re not there yet, and the league does a really nice job looking at new venues around the world,” began Buckley.
“We’re going to Geneva this year, which would be the first time for SailGP. I’ve never been there myself and [I’m] really excited about that.
“Newport, Rhode Island would be back to authenticity, right? Sailing and Newport, Rhode Island, they go hand in hand. A race in the harbor, off Fort Adams in Newport, Rhode Island would be, would be awesome,” continued Buckley. “One thing that’s unique is SailGP, I don’t think we’ve engaged the sailing fan very well. And going to Newport, I think, would start to really unlock that.
“I think some of the sailors feel like what we’re doing is so different. There’s a bit of a gap there, and that’s something that I wanna make sure that gap closes. We want the average sailor to, you know, know what we’re up to.
As for Vancouver, Buckley was also open to the idea.
“I did a world championship in Vancouver. Six years ago. Lost in the last race, but it was such a fascinating place to sail with the mountains, snow-capped mountains in the distance, the seaplanes.
“I got to take off after the race in a seaplane to go to another race. That would be a really, really cool place to host a race. I loved it there. The only thing, there’s a lot of debris in the water there,” continued Buckley. “I remember there were like massive trees floating in the water there. That could be a problem for us, but that is such a beautiful place. It would be great to see us expand there.”
Buckley also offered some expansion ideas of his own.
“China is something that is really interesting. India, continuing to expand in the Middle East, I think there’s a lot of places that we’ll see SailGP take a look at in the future.”
The New York Sail Grand Prix
As our time grew short, I turned to the upcoming New York Sail Grand Prix, a SailGP event that will take the teams past iconic landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty, and Ellis Island.
I began by asking Buckley what his expectations were for the upcoming event.
“My expectations are progress. That is what I’m judging myself on. That’s what I’m judging our team on, is progress.
“It’s not results.
“We need to keep making progress.”
Buckley then outlined how, after a tremendous start to the season with a third-place finish in the season-opening Dubai Sail Grand Prix, the team has endured some setbacks.
“We’ve had a few setbacks this season. We started out on an incredible high with a podium to start the season. Everybody felt great, and then we followed that up with a couple of really tough ones. We need to bounce back,” added Buckley. “Momentum is king in sport, life, business, whatever, and when momentum’s not going your way, it makes things tough.
“We’ve got to kind of turn the tables here.”
Buckley believes the backdrop of New York City gives the US SailGP team the perfect environment to regain some momentum.
“To be able to do it with the backdrop of the Statue of Liberty and New York City, I always say, if you can’t be motivated and inspired in New York City, you probably can’t be motivated or inspired, right?
“It truly is the city that never sleeps, and people change the world, and we rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange yesterday and got to hear the history of other people that have rung the bell there, and it’s just … I hope we can leave New York City feeling good about our progress. “We’ve got a lot of new commercial partners coming, and guests, and family and friends, and yeah, it’s going to be a hell of a week.”
For those interested in heading to New York City for the event, or learning more about the sport, Buckley has an elevator pitch for you as well.
“We’d love to have you follow us on social media, check out our app, we’ve got our own US SailGP team app that’s constantly putting out content, trying to get a new audience closer to all of us and understand what we go through, understand what we’re thinking,” began Buckley.
‘We’d love to have you come to a race, June 7th and 8th in New York. You can go on SailGP.com and, and buy tickets, reach out. I think what’s really exciting for me is when I see people that come and give SailGP a chance. Nine out of ten times we have a fan when they leave, and that’s what’s really exciting.
“It’s not easy to get people to come, right?
“There’s an education element that needs to happen, a marketing element that needs to happen, but once they come and you see these massive wings of these sailboats ripping around, and you see all the fun that’s being had, the food, the drinks, you’re in the sun by the water,” added Buckley. “Who doesn’t like that?
“But there’s a marketing and education aspect of it, and that’s the thing that we’re trying to do right now.
“But hopefully you’ll follow along and stay with us over the next few years as we build this thing up.”
