America’s Cup 38: ETNZ Responds to American Magic and Athena Racing
In the middle of the night on May 23, Emirates Team New Zealand's response arrived in our editorial office, reacting to the statements released yesterday by Athena Racing — the Challenger of Record for the next America’s Cup — and by American Magic, one of the other teams expected (or perhaps more accurately, supposed) to challenge the Kiwis in the waters of Naples in 2027 for the conquest of the "Auld Mug".
Beyond the confrontational tone of the press release, the key development is the simultaneous publication of the most up-to-date draft of the Protocol for the 38th America’s Cup, released “as a sign of transparency.”
It is worth recalling that, precisely due to the alleged lack of transparency by the Cup holders and the organizers of AC38, Ernesto Bertarelli, owner of the Swiss team Alinghi, recently announced his team’s withdrawal from the competition.
Below is the full ETNZ statement, while attached to this article is the latest draft of the Protocol for the 38th America’s Cup.
The Defender has been working closely and positively with all teams on moving the America’s Cup to a new collaborative Partnership and structure to strengthen the future of the America’s Cup for the benefit of the event and all current and future teams.
In an unprecedented move, the Defender in conjunction with the Challenger of Record has been working with all teams on the development of the Protocol for the 38th America’s Cup over the past few months. This has resulted in the current Protocol incorporating many ideas and positions of the teams. As a result of the significant teams input the completion of the Protocol has been prolonged.
The latest version of the Protocol went back to the Challenger of Record Athena Racing, 10 days ago, prior to the announcement of Naples. The Defender has not had any feedback back from the Challenger of Record on the latest version other than acknowledgement it had been well received by the teams.
However, the Defender now feels due to the unreasonable allegations that have been levelled at it by Athena Racing and American Magic, that it is appropriate to publicly release the latest draft version of the 38th America’s Cup Protocol today as an illustration of complete transparency.
It is the responsibility of the Defender and has been an obligation of an agreement with the Challenger of Record, to secure the Host Venue by June 19th 2025 so all teams have clarity on one of the most important foundations of any America’s Cup.
Ahead of time, the teams now have that knowledge and understanding with the exciting announcement of Naples, Italy in 2027.
In contrast to the statement by Athena Racing, all teams have already been offered full access and transparency to the Host Venue Agreement (HVA), which was signed just last week, upon their signing of a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). Such a requirement is standard practice in with any contract that contains commercial sensitivities.
The Defender is yet to receive the returned NDA’s from Athena Racing as Challenger of Record.
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