Last month, the British SailGP team came from behind to top Australia and New Zealand in a tight three-way battle at the championship event in Abu Dhabi. It marked the first title for the Emirates-branded team during a transformative year for the race series with new teams, celebrity owners and additional races.
The momentum helped SailGP generate more than $200 million in 2025 revenue from league sponsorships and team sales, according to the race series. It was a 68% increase from last year. The Spain Grand Prix set a record for its global broadcast audience with 23 million viewers, and the average race attracted 18 million viewers, up 17%.
SailGP features identical hydrofoil catamaran boats that can go more than 60 miles per hour. It launched in 2019 with six league-owned teams and five races, primarily backed by billionaire Larry Ellison, who funded a pair of America’s Cup-winning teams and is now the world’s second-richest person at $279 billion, per Bloomberg. Five-time America’s Cup winner Russell Coutts was also a co-founder.
This past year had 12 races and 12 teams, with the new teams being Brazil and Italy. In June, Deloitte was hired to run a process for the next two slots—the number of teams is capped at 20. Thirty-five parties expressed interest, and Sweden secured the 13th slot to start racing in 2026, while bidding continues for a team to start in 2027.
Valuations have soared as the league transitioned to private ownership. Teams sold for between $5 million and $10 million during seasons 1 and 2, but in 2023, Marc Lasry’s Avenue Sports Fund led an investment group that paid roughly $35 million for the U.S. Sail GP team. Muse Capital was the lead investor in the Italian team that joined at a $45 million valuation this year. SailGP says the latest team valuations are “well in excess” of $60 million.
Star power is flocking to the race series. In June, Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman took over as controlling owners of the Australian team, while actress Anne Hathaway is part of Team Italy. Formula 1 driver Sebastian Vettel invested in Team Germany, and Real Madrid star Kylian Mbappé is on the French team’s cap table, which also added investment giant Ares in June.
The U.S. audience is starting to tune in to SailGP. CBS had the U.S. rights and broadcast portions for all 12 races in 2025. The Race to Abu Dhabi broadcast in November had 3.47 million viewers, surpassing the 1992 America’s Cup as the most watched sailing race in U.S. history.
The 2026 season kicks off Jan. 17 in Perth, Australia.
