‘UAE is a very important market for us’: SailGP MD Andrew Thompson

Andrew Thompson, the man driving the global sailing championship SailGP, oversees the overall commercial, events, and marketing strategy as well as the business operations and the league’s ten international teams. As the managing director, he has been instrumental in building one of the world’s fastest-growing sports and entertainment properties with technology and sustainability at its core.

In Season 4, SailGP features two events in the UAE – the first was held in Dubai on December 9-10, 2023, with the second being held in Abu Dhabi on January 13-14.

Here, Thompson tells Gulf Business more about the event held in Dubai, its expansion to Abu Dhabi and the race’s focus on sustainability.

SailGP is expanding to new locations, including Abu Dhabi. What are the factors behind the decision to host events in the UAE again, and what can fans in the region expect from these events?

We’re the fastest-growing sports and entertainment property in the world and so we must visit all corners of the globe while sticking to our purpose of being powered by nature and racing for a better future.

The UAE is a huge sports market as proven by the likes of F1, NBA, golf, and tennis. There is also a great maritime culture in the UAE and an audience that loves Grand Prix racing and wants to provide commercial backing.

Abu Dhabi is a new location for us and we’re looking forward to arriving in the city, showcasing what we’re about, engaging new fans, and creating a lasting impact once the racing is done.

SailGP is the world’s most exciting racing on water, so expect heart-stopping, adrenaline-fueled action and maybe even a bit of controversy too as the ten teams go face-to-face on the water.

The high-tech, high-speed F50s fly faster than the wind, at speeds approaching 100 km/h. It is grand prix racing like you’ve never seen before.

Could you elaborate on SailGP’s sustainability initiatives and its commitment to a better future through sailing?

In Dubai, we highlighted our ongoing commitment and passion to climate action with the first of many ‘Race For The Future’ takeovers. It was held at the same time as the city hosts COP28, the biggest climate change conference in the world, and we used our event to demonstrate the huge power of sport for good to inspire action and change mindsets. We are racing for ‘Impact, Innovation, Inclusivity and Clean Energy’.

For Impact – we want to use the opportunity to challenge other sports to embed sustainable action into their DNA as we have done with the world’s first-ever Impact League, which rewards and scores teams on their positive environmental and social action.

For Innovation – we are reducing our carbon footprint through technology and thinking differently. There are no more huge broadcast compounds, umpires, or event control because they are now all remote, which is saving hundreds of staff travelling to the event, which helps to reduce our carbon footprint.

For Inclusivity – we are breaking boundaries and changing the face of sailing. In Dubai, for the first time the world’s best female athletes trained together on an F50, which is all part of our target to have a female driver in the league by Season 6.

For Clean Energy – we are championing a world powered by nature. Together with Aggreko, we had the largest temporary solar array ever installed at an event in Dubai. It was as expansive as six basketball courts. The event was powered by 100 per cent clean energy onshore saving a massive 64 tonnes of carbon – the equivalent of taking 14 cars off the road for a year.

We are in a Race For The Future – for a better sport and a better planet. We’ve set an ambitious target of 55 per cent reduction of our carbon footprint by 2025 as well as committing to being fully powered by clean energy by 2025 too.

SailGP is becoming a globally recognised brand with UAE getting on board with partners like Mubadala and Emirates. How do you see the sport growing in the UAE and do you have a plan to have a team from the region?

Of course, our return for the Emirates Dubai Sail Grand Prix presented by P&O Marinas from December 9-10 and our debut Mubadala Abu Dhabi Sail Grand Prix presented by Abu Dhabi Sports Council wouldn’t be possible without the partners we work closest with.

Dubai is the home of Emirates and P&O Marinas and they are helping and doing great work to amplify our ambitions to grow the sport across the UAE, along with Dubai Sports Council.

We are excited about arriving in Abu Dhabi for the first time in January. The announcement of this back in September was another great moment for SailGP as we continue to grow and grow and grow.

Mubadala has increased its commitment to SailGP over the next three seasons and we are very much enjoying working alongside the Abu Dhabi Sports Council.

Together we will work to promote climate-positive solutions and foster transformative change within the region and look at ways that we can make an impact long into the future.

SailGP is making its debut in the Abu Dhabi Market, what are your plans in the market?

We’re delighted to be working closely with Mubadala and the Abu Dhabi Sports Council. Their dedication and commitment to SailGP has been superb and we look forward to that continuing into the future.

We know that SailGP events deliver direct economic benefits to their host cities. In Season 3, the average economic impact was $13.9m per event – as well as community engagement programming, and opportunities for local businesses and entrepreneurs.

Each city on the SailGP calendar shares our commitment to climate action and a cleaner future. They all sign the league’s Climate Action Charter – working alongside CDP – committing to local impact projects focusing on clean energy impact and wider ocean conservation.

We’ve got a fantastic series of events planned for the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Sail Grand Prix presented by Abu Dhabi Sports Council and we look forward to reviewing the impact we have on the city and the region as a whole.

The SailGP event in Dubai took place at Mina Rashid in December. What were the unique elements and challenges of racing in this venue, and how did it contribute to the excitement of the event?

SailGP is the world’s most exciting race on water. It is short, adrenaline-fuelled and unpredictable. The locations in both Dubai and Abu Dhabi couldn’t be more perfect.

Both cities have fantastic shorelines with deep water close to shore, which means the racing can happen right alongside our race stadium on the water’s edge. The experience for spectators is fantastic as the boats are so close you can almost touch them – well not quite, but you can feel the spray from them when they turn.

Our debut event at Mina Rashid in November 2022 was a great success. The athletes said at the time that they couldn’t wait to come back, which says it all.

They hailed the nature of the location at Mina Rashid. It is an extremely tight racecourse, which leads itself to dramatic racing ‒ and that is exactly what we saw.

Could you provide more details on SailGP’s engagement with youth education, and how is the organisation championing inclusivity and a transition to clean energy?

This is exactly what we mean when we talk about being in a Race For The Future – for a better sport and a better planet.

We are championing a world powered by nature. We are proud that in Dubai we had the largest temporary solar array ever installed at an event. We are proud that the event was powered by 100 per cent clean energy on shore. We are also proud of our Women’s Pathway and Inspire programme, which promotes diversity, inspires change, and accelerates inclusion.

As mentioned, as part of our Race For The Future takeover in Dubai, an all-female crew trained on an F50 for the first time, which was exciting. We want a gender-equitable league and have the ambition to have a female driver by Season 6, as I mentioned earlier.

At every event, we also host a series of Inspire activities. Inspire is our global youth and community programme, which has three pillars ‒ Learning, Careers and Racing.

Mubadala is a partner of Inspire and hundreds of youngsters will benefit from dedicated community and education initiatives in the UAE.

To date, 16,727 young people have taken part in the programme and we’ve increased our ambition to engage 10,000 in total to 25,000 by the end of Season 5.

With SailGP’s ambitious expansion, including a record 13-event calendar, what are your goals for the future of the sport, and how do you envision SailGP’s impact on the world of sailing and sports entertainment?

You can already see the future of the sport playing out in front of our very eyes. We’ve just announced the largest acquisition in the history of our sport with the sale of the US SailGP Team to a group of celebrity investors spanning sport, technology, and entertainment.

As part of that, we’ve seen Jimmy Spithill axed as the driver for the new US team only to come out and announce that he’s setting up an Italian team for Season 5.

From six teams and five events in Season 1 to ten teams and 13 events in Season 4, SailGP is growing rapidly ‒ but, as you can see, we’re not done there.

The US team sale and Jimmy’s Italian ambitions aside, there are some really exciting conversations taking place for next season. I expect to have around 14 events in Season 5.

What we can’t, and won’t, lose sight of though, are the ambitions sustainability targets we’ve set ourselves. We want to reduce our carbon footprint by 55 per cent by 2025. We want to be 100 per cent clean energy by 2025. We are leaders in purpose-driven and sustainable sport but we know we can do more ‒ and that is exactly where our focus is.