Never mind the sailor bans, protests, brinksmanship, or gamesmanship; the AC should really just ban the video production crew. After some two years of Youtube streaming, they managed to completely fuck up the live YT feed for the entire second race of yesterday’s Red Bull Youth AC action. Literally the entire world lost their feed for the better part of an hour; the thousands who were watching drifted off in minutes, many of them likely never to return – though a few hundred stayed to bitch on Youtube’s chat room (see left).
On a similar note, we’re a bit surprised to see ACEA hasn’t been able to convince a major sponsor like Red Bull and a major broadcast partner like ESPN to officially acknowledge that their companies have even the remotest connection to sailing. Take a look at Red Bull’s main website; they’ve spent millions on the Youth AC, but we dare you to find anything – anything at all – about sailing on their site. Snowboarding, surfing, base jumping, skateboarding…the company can even feature crappy music reviews on its home page, but not a sailing shot, promo, or piece of sailing, anywhere.
ESPN isn’t any better; unless you stumble across the AC in their whacked schedule, you’d never know ESPN was the international broadcast outlet for the Red Bull event, and a major partner for the AC itself. We challenge you to check them out, and be sure to click on ‘other sports’ to see just how many stupid-ass games ESPN can mention without once putting a header up for ‘sailing’.
We assume Red Bull and ESPN know what they are doing; ACEA clearly doesn’t. So why are they so silent on sailing? Is it because no one is watching, and they don’t want to waste a penny on promoting a loser? Or is it yet another example of pathetic ACEA communications and promotional work; no squeaky wheel = no grease?
