Barcelona bids farewell to the America's Cup maintaining its legacy

Barcelona will not host the next America's Cup. Three days after the competition ended, the unknown has been resolved. The City Council and the organizers have valued this Barcelona edition very positively and the legacy it has left in the city, but the consistory rules out re-injecting public money into the competition, although it does not close the door to the event being held again in the city if it does so without needing its financing.

For his part, Grant Dalton, whose team will organize the regatta again having been the winner, has explained that the competition will seek new locations as a result of the growth opportunity provided precisely by the "success" of the edition in the city. "Our goal is to build on the success of the Louis Vuitton 37 America's Cup," with the aim of increasing audience and participation in different regions and territories, whether in one or several venues.

The City Council, which has described this edition as a "success", does not plan to allocate public money to the competition again because hosting the America's Cup again does not respond to new objectives. Those set for this edition, according to the consistory, have been achieved: boost the blue economy, promote improvements on the coast and internationally project Barcelona.

The competition has attracted 2.56 million attendees during the 59 days that the competition has lasted

Now, the New Zealanders are looking towards other destinations for the next edition, and they do so as "an unprecedented opportunity for the continuous growth of the America's Cup, building on the foundation of the most solid success in recent history". The organizers argue that they want to expand the competition, and that "it would be difficult to increase the number of teams in Barcelona due to the available infrastructure space in the city."

Closes with 2.5 million attendees

According to the organizers, the America's Cup has attracted 2.56 million attendees during the 59 days the competition lasted, between August 22 and October 19. Attendees were distributed among the race village, the fanzones, the team bases, and the Hospitality area on land, but also by water, aboard vessels that included 243 superyachts.

The regatta leaves; the legacy stays

Thus, one edition has been enough to imprint Barcelona's seal on the competition. The debut of the women's category after more than 170 years of competition is part of the legacy the city leaves in the regatta, which also featured for the first time an inaugural show for the final, and which also closed with an exceptional event between Sara Baras and Josep Carreras.

The city has left its mark on the competition, and the competition has done so on the city, with transformations that have mainly affected its coastline. The reform of Port Olímpic, the start of the rehabilitation of the Portal de la Pau building and multiple investments in Port Vell are part of actions that have found a boost in the competition, without forgetting the launch of the nautical bus.

In addition to this physical transformation of the Barcelona coastline, the competition has also served to boost a sector in which the city wants to be a benchmark: the blue economy. It has done so by focusing part of the new Port Olímpic on this area, promoting new projects and converting old warehouses into startup hubs.

Barcelona, which has strengthened its international image with the regatta, has also wanted to take advantage of the competition to promote the practice of nautical sports, and to imbue the city with the America's Cup with the Cultural Regatta. Thus, the city bids farewell to the competition considering its objective of opening the city to the sea fulfilled, not only to its beaches, but to its sporting and economic potential.