Ben Ainslie’s Great Britain SailGP Team becomes the first competing team in the SailGP league to take franchise ownership.
Through an investment from Chris Bake, Ainslie and Bake have now take majority ownership of the team. Larry Ellison’s Oracle Racing Inc retain a minority equity in the team.
This announcement comes with further news that two additional new franchise teams will be joining the league for Season 3, the first of which was announced as a Swiss team on 6 September in Geneva.
Ainslie commented: “With new teams, owners and partners coming into SailGP the league is in a very exciting commercial space right now. SailGP has the commitment from Larry Ellison to take sailing where it has never been before.”
Chris Bake, Founder of Vitol Dubai Ltd, has been a dominant force on the RC44 Championship Tour since its inception in 2007 with his Team Aqua.
One of the first projects Bake will work with SailGP on is biofuel solutions to support the transition for the league and teams logistics, operations and broadcast.
Ainslie will be competing in Cádiz, Spain for the final SailGP event of the European leg of the season on 9 and 10 October 2021.
While Bake will be at the last RC44 event of the season, the class World Championship organized by Yacht Club Isole di Toscana, which kicks off on Thursday 7 October.