Back in the late 1990s I attended a sports conference in Europe and was given a ‘Victory Team’ cap by a powerboating fanatic.
It was my first personal interaction with the sport and also – more significantly – the Emirate of Dubai.
There were other sports events already taking place in Dubai in 1999. The annual tennis and golf events were already running – but the all-conquering Victory team was Dubai’s most successful sporting export and Class One Powerboating was riding high. It was a striking symbol of an exciting city by the sea.
The Victory Team has continued to bring trophies to Dubai but the sport has never really found a way to successfully capture a large audience when it is staged in the home of the perennial champions. This year there won’t even be a race in Dubai, although with a new promoter waiting in the wings there is optimism for the future.
It’s not just Class One that has struggled to attract crowds and investment in recent years. The XCat World Series was introduced to be a more spectator-friendly format. When it travelled to Australia’s Gold Coast in 2015 over 20,000 people turned out to follow proceedings and the event generated over US$ 5 million for the local economy.
In five years of events Dubai, though, the spectator numbers have never come close to reaching this level.
Dubai’s coastline is rich.
Dubai has also attracted lots of sailing events in the past decade. The pinnacle was the Louis Vuitton Trophy in 2010. Before and since there have been lots of world championship events and community competitions.
The event calendars of the Dubai International Marine Club and the Dubai Offshore Sailing Club continue to boast vibrant weekly racing, embracing everything from sailing and rowing in traditional boats to jet-ski and windsurfing races.
But, over the course of the past decade, it is a struggle to recall any event that has brought the wider community to the water’s edge or enticed them into a flotilla of spectator vessels.
Dubai has many kilometres of beachfront, fantastic weather and hundreds of boats available for rental. The sea is one of the Emirate’s greatest assets yet from a sporting point of view it remains under-exploited. Wouldn’t it be great to have a water sports event that could grow to rival the sporting and social success of the Rugby Sevens and Dubai World Cup?
Perhaps it could be a dhow sailing event. Despite all of the modern alternatives, these events remain very popular among the Emirati community. While the bulk of the action takes place away from the shoreline, the spectacle of 100 wooden dhows is extremely impressive and would be a strong base around which to build a family festival.
By #FAZZA : #Dubai #UAE #Hyperlapse #DubaiCanal pic.twitter.com/QgKOQOXPqy
— قروب فزاع (@groupfazza) November 12, 2016
The recent Red Bull Cliff Diving provided another potential vision of the future. A dramatic Marina location and high production values helped bring thousands of young spectators to the shoreline.
Alternatively, the Dubai Water Canal could become a perfect location for a rowing race or regatta along the lines of the Oxford v Cambridge Boat Race in London or the Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston.
It feels like there’s an opportunity to give the water a greater role in the lives of Dubai’s event-loving public and – as we’ve seen from the success stories on dry land – a well-executed annual event or festival will also boost tourism.
It could be any of these concepts, or something completely different. It just needs to have a fixed slot in the calendar and be accessible to young adults and families across a range of nationalities.
It’s not an easy task by any means – otherwise it would already exist – but with the Dubai Water Canal now running through the heart of the city, there really does seem to be an opportunity to find a winning watersports event in this spectacular waterfront city.
Jon Long is Managing Director – Middle East for Nielsen Sports
