Team New Zealand has delayed the announcement of the next venue for the America's Cup by "weeks".
Team New Zealand celebrate winning the America's Cup in March. Photo: ACE | Studio Borlenghi
Three international proposals are under consideration and the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron (RNZYS) together with Team New Zealand (ETNZ), announced on Friday that they are extending the selection period for the shortlisted offshore venues to continue to work through final details and provide further information required for their respective bids.
"For the benefit of both the 37th America's Cup and the eventual host venue, we would rather allow some more time now so we make the right decision as opposed to a rushed decision," RNZYS Commodore Aaron Young said.
The Covid-19 lockdown in New Zealand has been blamed, in part, for Team New Zealand team members being unable to visit prospective venues.
The late arrival of information from a private bid, lead by Mark Dunphy, to keep the Cup racing in Auckland will also be taken into consideration.
In a statement ETNZ and RNZYS said the need for Challengers to know the final venue as soon as practicable was taken into consideration.
"The fundamental fact is that we have a number of outstanding potential venues literally going down to the wire and all of them with strong and competitive bids on the table and firmly committed to completing agreements in the coming weeks - that's a good place to be in for sure," Team New Zealand chief executive officer Grant Dalton said.
"It's frustrating not to have been able to close our agreement with a host venue by the planned date of 17 September as previously proposed but we are now giving ourselves more time to work through the final details of the respective venues as the current Covid situation in New Zealand has made the process more difficult.
"As we have always maintained throughout, however unlikely it seemed, Auckland has never been off the table for obvious reasons. So now that we finally have an 11th hour letter from Mr Dunphy, it would be remiss of us not to explore the viability of an Auckland event and if it in fact can be fully and completely funded locally. To date there has been no evidence of this being the case."
The search for the AC37 host venue was started in May 2020 by Origin Sports Group but was paused for an exclusive three-month period from 17 March, during which the New Zealand government had the exclusive right to negotiate AC37 being held in New Zealand and continued once this period lapsed.