AMERICA’S CUP ’92 : COMMENTARY : Conner Shortchanged in Millionaires’ Game

One of the oddities of the America’s Cup is that the sailor who wins it does not always get to defend it.

He gets to pose with the trophy, then watches someone else carry it off to the yacht club he represented and to which it then belongs.

If he’s lucky, he might win the right to defend it, but there are no longer any guarantees and no favoritism--not for Dennis Conner, not for anybody.

Isn’t that fair? No. Not anymore.

The America’s Cup of the 1990s is a game favoring multi-millionaires, not “poor sailors,” as Conner has described himself.

It’s bad enough that lire, yen and New Zealand pounds already have forged formidable threats to seize the Cup from the San Diego Yacht Club, but Conner first must find a way to overcome industrialist Bill Koch’s America-3 bankroll for the right to sail for America.

The evidence is that he’ll founder, unless help arrives soon to bail him out. As it comes time to ante up, Conner is looking at a short stack of chips.

A successful Cup campaign, say those who should know, will now cost $15 million and up--way up. Conner’s camp reports that he has signed three major sponsors--Pepsi, Cadillac and American Airlines--for $3 million each. But sources say that $1.2 million of the Pepsi money already was owed the soft drink company for overruns in the ’88 catamaran defense, and the balance will be paid in increments of $600,000 as Conner achieves certain performance levels in the competition--which, of course, he won’t achieve without enough cash.

And the airline’s contribution is said to consist largely of “gifts in kind,” such as free transportation, not money.

The irony is that in trying to be so fair, the San Diego Yacht Club, through its management arm, the America’s Cup Organizing Committee, has all but squeezed its best sailor out of the game.

More irony: It was Sir Michael Fay, the New Zealand merchant banker, whose renegade challenge with the big, white boat in ’87 launched the move to magnificent, expensive boats and put the Cup beyond reach of those lacking extraordinary resources.

Can it be that Fay finally found a way to beat his nemesis, Conner?

Can they have an America’s Cup in San Diego, his hometown, without Dennis Conner?

“That won’t happen,” says Malin Burnham, Conner’s longtime confidant, benefactor and partner in past Cup successes (and one failure).

Burnham means if Conner needs help, somehow he’ll get it. Officially, Burnham, as president of the ACOC, is no longer associated with Conner but the ACOC already has a plan to help him--not to beat Koch, but just to compete against Koch for the right to defend.

“I’ve told both Dennis and Bill Koch that whatever is in the past, I personally do not care whether Dennis or Bill is at the starting line (against the ultimate challenger),” Burnham says. “What I do care about is that one or the other is going to beat the rest of the world. That’s my number one goal.”

The plan would involve the ACOC soliciting national corporate support Conner has been unable to acquire and then dividing it between the defense syndicates. Koch isn’t obligated to accept any help, of course, and probably wouldn’t if it entailed displaying the sponsor’s advertising on his boats and sails.

Conner can’t afford to be so pure. He’d wear logos on his underwear.

The problem with this plan is that three other syndicates previously officially blessed by the ACOC already tapped out.

Peter Isler, who folded his effort late last summer, said of the plan, “There’s a little bit of me that says, ‘Wait a minute,’ but I’m enough removed from it (now). If they’d done it the next week (after Isler dropped out) then I’d definitely be out of joint.

“Now, I don’t think I’d harbor any grudge. I made my decision on the conditions at the time. If I was still hanging by my teeth, I wouldn’t be proud to have the ACOC bail me out. If both teams feel they need the help, well, they’ve made it this far so I guess it’s their prerogative.”

Larry Klein, whose Triumph America at one time announced it had “merged” with Koch, said, “It doesn’t surprise me. We always thought they might do something at this point.”

In fact, there was initially some thought to funding all defense syndicates from a central source, with Conner as the major fund-raiser for all--for a commission. But the San Diego Yacht Club ruled that he must make a choice: Be a sailor or the general fund-raiser. He chose to sail.

There also is the possibility, if the plan is implemented, that other impoverished defense syndicates previously dismissed by the ACOC will come back with their hands out.

Conner declined comment, and Jerry La Dow, his executive aide, professed no knowledge of a bail-out plan.

“I wouldn’t know,” La Dow said. “The ACOC and Malin and the yacht club board have been very careful to maintain this level playing field. Dennis wants to do this on his own.”

That requires a strong cash-flow because, as La Dow says, “There ain’t no credit in the America’s Cup.”

Burnham, a wealthy San Diego banker, could probably help Conner personally, but he’s on the spot.

He said, “People around the world and in San Diego have a consciousness that I’m still helping and favoring Dennis. I absolutely have to be neutral.”

La Dow said, “That is a dilemma for Malin. He is not only a life-long friend of Dennis’, but he recognizes more than most the importance of Dennis to this event and his right to the opportunity of being the defender.”

But Burnham also recognizes that “it would certainly be less of an America’s Cup event without the man who won the last three that America won (‘80, ’87 and ‘88). That’s not even an issue. Dennis is in it. He’s in it up to his teeth, and he’s quite confident he can raise the necessary funds to have at least a two-boat program. Dennis isn’t crying for help.”

He never will. He shouldn’t have to.