Larry Ellison and Ernesto Bertarelli perhaps bear equal blame for a litigious and incredibly costly America’s Cup race which turned more on technology and court rulings than on sailing.   Now Ellison is singing a different tune, saying  ”We’d like this to not be a matter of who invests the most money in designing their boat but who sails the best.”  If he is true to his word, this might open up the America’s Cup races again to mere millionaires rather than being so costly that only billionaires can play.

Larry Ellison: Make America’s Cup about sailing, not money

Ellison seems to mean it. One of his favorite competitions besides the America’s Cup is an international circuit in which all entrants sail identical boats, called RC 44s. He wouldn’t suggest such a drastic break with tradition for the America’s Cup, but he does want to alter the competition’s design rules — a prerogative of the winner — so that it would take as little as $3 million to mount a campaign. That way national teams that have abandoned America’s Cup racing, like Sweden and South Africa, would probably return.