America’s Cup organizers announced on Friday, March 23 that the agreement on the verge of being finalized with the City of San Francisco will bring organizational changes as well as staff reductions at the America’s Cup Event Authority, the commercial arm of the sport, due in part to downsizing of the event footprint in San Francisco.
34th America´s Cup
The reductions will impact 14 in San Francisco and another 14 staff at other offices around the world.
“These individuals have been valued members of our team since the start of the Event Authority and have made many valuable contributions to our organization, and we wish them all of the best in their future endeavors,” said Stephen Barclay, Interim CEO, America’s Cup Event Authority. He said severance packages were in place for the departing employees who were informed of the decision of staff reductions today.
“We must ensure that our expenses match revenues. We made these changes to create efficiencies necessary to ensure that we deliver an exciting and important event for both the world of competitive sailing and San Francisco,” Barclay added.
He said the America’s Cup Event Authority was pleased it had reached a new agreement with the City of San Francisco, and hopes the Supervisors affirm the Agreement next Tuesday. The financial package is “not what we had anticipated or planned for but we are moving forward because this sailing event will be fantastic for the teams, sailors around the world and all San Francisco.”
Racing is set to kick off this year with the America’s Cup World Series events the first of which will be in Naples, Italy in April 11-15th followed by events in Venice, Italy (May) and Newport, Rhode Island (June).
