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Originally Posted by AstralTraveller
Plus Bob Hawke. He loves it because he gets to bathe in past reflected glories - and tell bluies on TV.
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That seems to be a common trait of Prime Ministers everywhere.
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On crew composition; in any other sport there are eligibility criteria for the competitors. Why not this sport?
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Well, for one thing it's barely an actual "sport," as opposed to a passtime for jaded billionaires.
To put things in perspective, I was once in a room with a bunch of overexcited Kiwis during the fever-pitch phase of an earlier A.C. outing, one that was taking place in San Diego. Here in NZ it was all akin to D-Day, and everyone was telling everyone else that, "The Whole World is Watching New Zealand!" and "It's Put New Zealand On the Map!"
So it was with enormous and hungry glee that these Kiwis watched as a NZ TV crew stopped passersby in downtown San Diego -- "a town in the grip of Cup fever," we were assured, repeatedly -- and asked their views on the event... Only for the shocked and dumbfounded Kiwis to discover that not even one of the dozens of San Diegans interviewed live had ever heard of the America's Cup -- one thought it was soccer, then asked if he was going to be "translated" -- and none of them had any idea it was in progress.
Nothing has changed: friends overseas know little or nothing about the America's Cup, and care even less. And in a week I'll be flying to Vancouver then driving south to L.A. and I'm pretty certain nobody I'm going to encounter will be wearing an A.C. T-Shirt.
The America's Cup: Wuld Fummus un UnZud.
