Dec 16, 2010

America's Cup: Supes Pass San Francisco's Best Bid For Venue Hosting
Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco have passed the recommendation from their Finance Committee for the Hosting of the 34th America's Cup.

The vote was unanimous 11-0

That plan, which was claimed by City officials to have been re-negotiated with BMW Oracle Racing since the weekend is for the so-called Northern Alternative, involving a set of Piers and infrastructure more to the north of the City.

The previous plan, involving a more central location, and the subject of four month negotiation between the America's Cup Defenders, will not be submitted.

At yesterday's Finance Committee hearing, official backed the Northern Alternative, largely on financial grounds in a deal that is effectively cost neutral to the City in return for an estimated $1.2billion dollars of Economic Return and 8,000 new jobs.

City Officials could not determine whether they were going to make or lose money on the deal. On one hand claiming that the deal would cost the City $11million and on the other saying that by accounting for $32million of sponsorship to be raised by the America's Cup Organising Committee and offsetting this against the $11million of cost, the City would show a positive return of $22million from the event.

The substitution of the Alternative Plan, as the City's best offer on Hosting effectively removes it from the position of having a 'winning bid' in the words of lead negotiator, Stephen Barclay of BMW Oracle Racing, to one where the San Francisco bid would be compared with others from Italy and New York.

Details of the New York bid are not to hand, however the Italian bid, believed to be linked to Rome's Olympic hosting aspirations for 2020, involves a guaranteed event fee and numerous other concessions and fast tracking.

The survival of a confidence vote by the Italian Prime Minister overnight, said to be a key supporter of the Italian bid, will have only strengthened the European hand. -- Richard Gladwell's full article in Sail-World.com