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| World Match Racing Tour information |
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  The World Match Racing Tour is the world’s leading professional sailing series, featuring America’s Cup teams, skippers, Olympic Gold medalists and World Champions in the ultimate one-on-one test, a “race of truth.” The World Match Racing Tour was created in 2000 (formerly named the Swedish Match Tour after title sponsor Swedish Match from 2000-05) to unite the world’s best match-race regattas under one banner. The goal was to afford more international coverage for the events, and create interest by crowning an overall ISAF World Match racing Championship at the end of the year. Through its first six years the World Match Racing Tour has become a proving ground for experienced match-race teams, America’s Cup teams and up-and-coming stars of the match-racing discipline Match-racing is a discipline of sailing that pits two crews and boats against each other, one-on-one, there is NO second place. Match Racing is the same discipline used in the America's Cup. However, the World Tour races in identically supplied yachts of up to 40 feet with 5-6 crew to keep costs dwon for each team. Races are held on short courses close to shore side spectator venues. The short course means that the races are quick, and it places an emphasis on boathandling, and knowledge of tactics and rules. The fields for each event usually number between 12 and 16 crews, although some events have up to 24 crews competing. Skippers receive invitations to the events based on their World Match Racing Tour standing and their ISAF World Ranking. Each event’s format consists of one or a series of round robins. The rounds help whittle the field to a quarterfinals, semifinals and ultimately the finals. Competitors earn points (100 per event) toward the ISAF World Match Racing Championship by placing in the top eight at each regatta. See Scoring Regulations for more information about Tour scoring procedures. Television Highlights The World Match Racing Tour produces 155 hours of television coverage reaching more than 426 million households worldwide annually. Ten half-hour programs are produced, plus 30 hours of host broadcast coverage. Distribution includes U.K. & Europe – Sky Sports & Eurosport Eastern Europe – Fox Sports Western Europe – UPC/Sport 1 Netherlands – SBS6 Portugal – Sport TV Middle East – Fox Sports Asia – ESPN Star Australia – Fox Sports Scandinavia – ViaSat Israel – JCS Sports New Zealand – TVNZ Latin and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Middle East, Africa, Japan – ESPN International U.S. – Versus |
