(Adds details)
By Alexander Smith
LONDON, Nov 29 (Reuters) – A group of investors including actress Issa Rae and heavyweight boxer Deontay Wilder has bought SailGP’s U.S. team, in a move the team’s new chief executive Mike Buckley said on Wednesday would encourage diversity on and off the water.
SailGP said the acquisition of the team which had previously been run by America’s Cup veteran Jimmy Spithill would be the largest in the 10-team competition often billed as the sport’s equivalent of Formula One and now in its fourth season.
“We launch with the most diverse ownership group of our sport,” Buckley said of the new investors, adding in a video interview with Reuters that their long-term investment aimed to bring SailGP “into the mainstream”.
The lead investor in the team is the Avenue Sports Fund, led by Avenue Capital Group CEO Marc Lasry, who has invested alongside co-owners Buckley, Ryan McKillen and Margaret McKillen, along with big sports, tech and entertainment names.
Buckley said the team was keeping financial details of the deal confidential, but that SailGP had shown that it could “stand on its own two feet” commercially and this had helped him get the backing needed from a “best in class” investor group.
Nearly a year ago, a new investment valued the privately-owned SailGP team of Britain’s Ben Ainslie at $40 million.
The U.S. team also said it has appointed Taylor Canfield to steer its 50-foot foiling catamaran, with the seven-times world champion sailor getting the first chance to test his F50 skills at the next SailGP in Dubai in December.
Buckley said the team was faced with the immediate challenge to “improve a bit every day”, starting from next week when they land in Dubai.
(Reporting by Alexander Smith; Editing by Ed Osmond)
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