Grant Dalton: Team New Zealand CEO on the new America's Cup rules

The newly announced America’s Cup rules are shaking up the competition. 

The confirmed protocol includes a requirement for a female sailor on board, batteries replacing manual power, the introduction of a cost cap, and a reduced number of sailors on board. 

It also outlines a new partnership between all teams, establishing equal authority among those involved. 

Team NZ CEO Grant Dalton told Mike Hosking it’s been a pretty torrid six months getting the changes across the line, but anything worth doing is not necessarily easy. 

He says people are focusing on the obvious changes, but the seismic shift will be the America’s Cup moving from a boom-bust cycle into a more even cycle. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
America's Cup in twenty seven. A Napoli one female will
be part of the crew. Batteries will replace manual power.
We've got a cost cap of one hundred and forty
seven million. Also, the two now non nationals will be
allowed to sail on bird on board. That's the Burling
rule of course. Grant Dotkin, as Team New zealand Schief
executive back with us. Good morning, morning making and so

(00:20):
on a scale of one to ten, ten, you're delirious.
How happy are you with this?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Seven seven and a half. It's been a pretty tough deal.
It's been a pretty torrid six months getting this across
the line. But I guess anything that's worth doing was
not necessarily easy.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Was a gun healthy head? Did they want all of
these changes? And they were insistent on it.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
There was a split on that. There was sort of
one side that was trying to use the gun tactic,
which is one of the reasons it took so long,
because that doesn't work. Negotiating with a gun doesn't work.
Then there was the other sort of side of challenges
that were completely on board with everything that we were
trying to achieve. In some ways they had to marginalize

(01:02):
the gun holders before you can make progress, and really
the progress only moved at pace in the last month,
but there was a lot to negotiate, a lot of change,
and people are focusing on sort of the things that
are obvious and good too, like women on the boat.
But the big change, the seismic move, is that the

(01:24):
America's Cup will move from this boom bus cycle into
a more even cycle where it can be planned. We
can start planning for twenty nine now, right.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
It just strikes me there's a lot of change here.
Has the stuff been bubbling and all kind of came
to a head. Hence it appears slightly more dramatic than
it has previously.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
No, no, this is more dramatic than it has been previously.
And the agreement that we made signed yesterday to move
the America's Cup from a defender totally dominated environment which
has been for one hundred seventy four years work quite
nicely to a more even partnership is that's a big deal.

(02:07):
And you know, as the three times winners of the
Cup and the Ryal New Jian Yacht Squadron is a trustee,
you've got to decide whether in fifty years time, people
are going to think that you know, you're the ones
that screwed it up, or whether it's a good idea.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
One forty seven million, does that limit you in a
way that you might regret.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
It's a very funny thing, this budget cap. I always
have a bit of a giggle when they talk about
seventy five million euros. I'd love to be able to
spend seventy five million euros. So any cost cap is
an absolute advantage to Team New Zealand because we couldn't
spend that if we tried. Well probably I'm sure we
could if we tried. So cost caps are very much
something that we've been in favor of to knock out

(02:48):
that sort one hundred and fifty million euro budgets that
some of these teams spend, because we just have always
been at least half of anybody else. So this is
an advantage to us.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Females with a you to what what's the point? It's
not a bad idea, but what's the point?

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Well, I've been Meanwhile, diversity inclusion is a point all
on its own, So I don't think there's anybody on
the planet I think that's a bad idea. I've always
been a bit and honestly, the challenge of record was
the same. We couldn't decide whether we should mandate or
not because there's a whole argument of females on the
boat would feel more as though they should be there

(03:27):
if they could earn their place. But we didn't really
have a mechanism to get necessarily from the Woman's America's
Cup directly to the boat without the mandate, and so
in balance we decided it was the right thing to do.
But the point simply is the world is moving, and
it's good. It's good for marketing as well that we

(03:48):
need to move with the times.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Most importantly, for a person like media follows this. Does
it help entries? I mean, does the event get more
people involved? Therefore it becomes more exciting.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
The America's Cup, to me, has never been about twenty entries.
It's not that game. I mean the technology race, which
is hard to win, and that hasn't changed. It's not
suddenly about to be very easy to win. The best
team will short of win, but it should promote more entries.
What it does do is it drive value into the
teams in the way that a franchise will grow. Use

(04:22):
formula one. I mean the value in the increase in
those teams has been dramatic. So I think ultimately that's
one of its massive advantages of making it. You can
see what you're getting. You don't know that in two
years time it's all going to change. Wars got to one,
the next one and it would have changed. No one
might have changed. So I think with driving value, it

(04:42):
helps investment. Investment helps more entries.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
And what about tech and design? By the time we
get to Naples and twenty seven, is it radically different
or are we at such a cutting edge it's money, No.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
It won't be radically different, but for sure it will
be different. I mean, it just never stops. And our guy,
you know, we've got twenty five guys just flat stick
working on tech now. And that's a big difference with
the Cup in any other part of the sport. That
this is a technology race and you never want to
lose that. That's one of the intrigues. That's what people like.
It's fascinates people that the cutting edge and the development

(05:17):
and we are the test bed of the future, and
that is a part of the Cup that I would
never have changed.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
All Right, I'm good to catch up. Grant Dalton, the
head of Team New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
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