The Concorde by Air France tickets are a good deal to the Olympics 2012

I was a little distracted over the last few weeks and did not get to cover the Olympics in London as I had hoped. My Supersonic flight on the Concorde was cancelled, apparently I booked through an agent in Nigeria, but I didn’t know these plans didn’t fly anymore. I don’t think I’ll be getting my $5000 deposit back either, darn. The TV was not broadcasting the events in real time, so I don’t think it is that important to watch things that aren’t really happening when I can just read about them on the internet before they are even shown on TV. I refuse to report on News that isn’t live-action anyway. And there is a financial crisis in Europe which doesn’t bode well for partying and pub crawls in the Olympic Village while other people are suffering. The two things I remember reading about on the internet are the Flying Queen, too bad it wasn’t the real Queen and the Badminton competition gone bad, very bad. The players at the Badminton competition at the Olympics were playing to lose. I’m sure the bookies were pissed about that. Can you imagine the odds if you knew the fix was in? It’s not like they were doing it on purpose, it’s just they were going to have to face China if they won, so it was more competitive to lose in the earlier rounds except that nobody wanted to win, so they just kept playing to see who could lose first. Fantastic.

I have always loved the fundamentals of the America’s Cup regatta and the long history of the Cup itself, but over the years the America’s Cup has attempted to become a caricature of yacht racing. The idea that multi-hull boats are being used, along with excessive amount of advertisements on the sail and that a natural arena will now allow millions of people to see the actual races themselves will either bring the sport to greater heights of success or separate yacht racing even further from reality. The San Francisco Bay is the next location for the America’s Cup races and this will be the first time that people will be able to watch from all around the Bay instead of having to travel out to Sea to watch the actual races. Here is a link to a broadcast that would be most like the average person trying to watch a sailboat race. Please watch this video to the end, it’s worth it.  http://www.thatvideosite.com/v/5852

The fact is that the America’s Cup should be profitable for the City as it is a once-in-a-lifetime event, should the United States lose then it would be, with the beautiful skyline and geometry of the Bay as the background to a world famous competitive event. There are no tickets to be sold, except for some people who want to say they “officially” attended and the America’s Cup has to pay the networks to cover their event, versus other Sporting Events that pay boatloads of money to get the rights to show things like the World Series or the Supper Bowl. The America’s Cup is not a sport that your average American gives a shit about and they are definitely not going to go Pay-per-View or have barbeque parties with their friends so that they can watch plastic wrapped football player type guys get wet on tv, not so much fun. Oh, what to do? Recognize that the benefits of this type of event will translate to an atmosphere of curiosity and awe while it is going on, but it just does not relate to other spectator sports with a captive audience.

This is not to say that the America’s Cup won’t be a bonus for business people around the Bay Area, it should be as all of the restaurants with seating on the water will be booked six months in advance and charter boats won’t have any problem filling up with daily trips out to see the races, but overall it’s a postcard event with some local benefits. I went online to see if there were any employment opportunities with the America’s Cup event and found this article: America’s Cup layoffs affect half of San Francisco staff

The Cup – America’s cup photo

This new enhanced Cup looks much bigger than the original cup that I found photos of on Wikipedia. I wonder if it has been made bigger to try and make the stature of the event seem bigger? Maybe the cup is only big enough to hold a beer or two, I can’t really tell. It is more of a decanter if you look at it. Not really for drinking out of like a real cup, unless of course you are Zeus and require a pour when you drink. This could’ve been the equivalent of a beer bong back in the day when it was made. That would explain a lot about the cup itself, which should be referred to as more of a hooka than a cup. Ah, those were the days.

Wikipedia photo of the cup from the early 1900′s