SailGP focuses on social media audiences during inaugural season finale with Grabyo By Heather McLean, Editor
Monday, October 7, 2019 - 17:08
Print This Story
The Australian SailGP Team F50 skippered by Tom Slingsby AUS races across Sydney Harbour
Global sailing league SailGP is strategically using its digital media output to bring new viewers into the sailing fan base, as the fast-maturing competition seeks to give the sport a makeover in order to increase its popularity.
Tim Godfrey, SailGP chief marketing officer, told SVG Europe: I absolutely see this as a racing product, not just a sailing product. The F50, which is the class of boat we use, is currently the fastest course racing sailboat in the world. It's extreme.
This is a super-charged version of the sport. This is competitive inshore racing; this is not the Ocean Race a year-long race around the world - this is fast racing on the water that leaves you wanting more.
Delivering highlights to social
SailGP captured vast social audiences during its 2019 finale by delivering real-time highlights to social media using Grabyo.
Godfrey commented: We wanted to supercharge our final two events of the season by thinking about how we could attract new audiences. We obviously have our live, linear product distributed over many broadcasters globally, but we wanted to think about how to add to our owned and operated channels.
We chose Grabyo to enable our near-live clipping, clipping big incidents throughout the racing, he said.
Godfrey said that previously, SailGP was clipping and sharing itself in a labour-intensive process. Before, we were essentially clipping the moment' and manually posting it out to our channels, whereas with Grabyo it's a seamless, one-click, which enables us to post to multiple channels at one time.
Sail GP in New York
Pushing the limits
The nature of SailGP is to push the limits of the sport. As such, Grabyo's browser-based video tools allowed the digital team to create and share social videos that explained and explored the technology of SailGP's fleet of six F50 catamarans.
As the dramatic events of the final race unfolded, Grabyo's cloud video platform enabled SailGP to clip, edit and deliver social videos and highlights to Facebook and Twitter in real-time. Fans across the world were able to access live video updates from the waters in Marseille as they happened.
The most thrilling moment of the race, when the Australian and Japanese boats nearly touched during a daring manoeuvre, was shared to social media moments after it happened, creating a live buzz across social media.
Godfrey added: We've enjoyed a phenomenal first season, which was capped off by a thrilling last day of racing. It was vital to us to be able to share the drama and excitement of SailGP with people all over the world, and Grabyo enabled us to do so live, allowing fans to feel like they were there.
Aaron Duckmanton, Grabyo head of marketing, commented: The final race day of SailGP's brilliant first season is a perfect example of why sporting leagues need to ensure they can easily deliver content to fans worldwide in real-time. Sport is unpredictable, and nobody wants to miss a moment of the action; social platforms still represent the best platform for sports like SailGP to grow and educate audiences.
Next season plans
Established in 2018, the organisation's first year of operation included the inaugural season of SailGP, which visited three continents across five events, 29 races and a spectacular championship finale between the year's top-two national teams.
Godfrey said of SailGP's first year of existence and the technologically advanced approach it has taken to broadcasting that SailGP has pushed technology to the limits this year. We're quite a mature broadcaster after only five events. I sometimes have to remind myself it's only been five events! he added.
In terms of next season, we want to enhance the app and grow the sport, taking it outside of our core sailing fans, continued Godfrey. We see digital and broadcasting working in tandem. Being able to drive the [new] fan [to broadcasts] via near-live clips [is key]. If you are a fan or if aren't an avid fan, and you come across a near-live clip that links to a broadcaster, you can click on that.
He added: We'll certainly have a period of consultation with our partners on what has worked and what didn't work as well, and we'll talk to our global broadcasters before we make any decisions for next year. More analysis is going to be key, demystifying sailing terminology, making it more understandable for fans for years to come will be important.
Most recent headlines
23/12/2025
How guilas Cibae as Dominican Winter League Games Are Locally Produced for Glob...
23/12/2025
BitFire's Jim Akimchuk on Supplying Scalability and Customization in the Clo...
23/12/2025
CAMB.AI Enables European Athletics to Offer Multi-Language SupportPlan is to eventually offer translation into all languages spoken in EuropeBy Ken Kerschbaumer...
23/12/2025
Analysis: As sports media values trend negative, scarcity and quality are king By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Monday, December 22, 2025 - 14:08
Print ...
23/12/2025
ESPN, Disney, and NBA Return to the Animated Altcast Fray With Second Edition of...
23/12/2025
End the Year on a High Note and Donate to the Sports Broadcasting Fund Today! By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Tuesday, December 23, 2025 - 12:25 pm
...
23/12/2025
The year is winding down, the weather outside is frightful, and it's the perfect time to escape into a story that warms the heart. For listeners looking for...
23/12/2025
A Zeus motor is hot fire tested at L3Harris' Camden, Arkansas, solid rocket ...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Lightware will exhibit several major product innovations at ISE 2026, including the new USB-C BOOSTER-V1, Google Meet. integration for various Taurus UCX models...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Taking the Stage at Carnegie Hall-On a Global Scale Boston Conservatory Orchestra students reflect on their epic concert marking the 80th session of the UN Gene...
23/12/2025
Experience the power of WO Automation for Radio's newest service, the System Effectiveness Review. Designed to help you achieve more, a System Effectiveness...
23/12/2025
23 Dec 2025
VEON's Beeline Kazakhstan and Rakuten Symphony Collaborate to A...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
How Steamy Can It Get? Single's Inferno' Season 5 Pre...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
33 Million Global Viewers on Netflix Watched Jake Paul vs. Ant...
23/12/2025
New technique lights up where drugs go in the body, cell by cell Scripps Research scientists developed a technique that maps drug binding in individual cells th...
22/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Neerav Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
22/12/2025
Hitting the bullseye: Sky Sports readies itself for the biggest PDC World Darts ...
22/12/2025
Unique skillset: Bringing new directors to the world of darts at The Worlds with...
22/12/2025
Gravity Media prepares for a flight of fancy with the PDC World Darts Championsh...
22/12/2025
One hundred and eighty: Gravity Media on hitting the production bullseye at the ...
22/12/2025
The Famous Group's Jon Slusser on Fascinating Fans Through Immersive Content...
22/12/2025
ESPN's Meg Aronowitz on Continuing High-Quality Broadcasts of Collegiate Spo...
22/12/2025
ESPN Takes Data-Driven Storytelling to New Heights with MNF Playbook with Next ...
22/12/2025
For a decade, popular German podcast Fest & Flauschig has hosted an annual Chris...
22/12/2025
Paramount Scores Largest Share Increase Among Distributors as Paramount and CBS...
22/12/2025
New multi-year deal integrates Roku's data to fuel Nielsen's measurement suite
Roku gains access to Nielsen's streaming ratings, showing The Roku C...
22/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
22/12/2025
Berklee Wrapped 2025: Our Top News and Stories A look back at a year highlighted by faculty milestones, major film and television projects, Bob Dylan's ho...
22/12/2025
The works of Plato state that when humans have an experience, some level of change occurs in their brain, which is powered by memory - specifically long-term me...
22/12/2025
Partnership integrates complementary satellite data and AI analytics to enhance security, infrastructure, and environmental monitoring solutions for global cust...
22/12/2025
Workflows allow you to create a sequence of planned events which may be added to your template(s) or inserted directly into your sequential or background playli...
22/12/2025
Monday 22 December 2025
Sky extends PGA TOUR partnership until 2029, as Sky Spo...
22/12/2025
Back to All News
Global Anime Hits and New Releases Take Center Stage at Jump Festa 2026
Entertainment
22 December 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied to clipboar...
22/12/2025
Siobh n McSweeney, Rory McIlroy, Elon Musk, Catherine Connolly, Jim Gavin, Ivan Yates and Traitor Paudie Moloney lead new characters for Callan Kicks the Year 2...
22/12/2025
Winner announced in the picturesque surroundings of Wicklow's Avondale Tower and Treetop Walk
Andrew Trimble wins the show in his first series as coach
Th...
22/12/2025
The 2025 winners have been announced today, Sunday 21 December, for Ireland's largest choral competition Choirs for Christmas hosted by RT lyric fm.
Ove...
21/12/2025
Back to All News
Legoshi and Haru's Story Reaches Its Finale: BEASTARS Fin...
21/12/2025
John Shortt named Young Sportsperson of the Year Kerry are the Team of the Year
...
20/12/2025
Atomos announced the immediate availability of a new firmware update for its Ninja TX GO and Ninja TX monitor-recorders, unlocking ProRes RAW recording from the...
20/12/2025
CJP Broadcast has completed the digitisation of the European Gymnastics tape archive, converting 328 tapes containing more than forty years of recorded material...
20/12/2025
Bitmovin, the leading provider of video streaming solutions, today announced the launch of the Stream Lab MCP Server, to give AI agents and large language model...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
SailGP focuses on social media audiences during inaugural season finale with Grabyo By Heather McLean, Editor 
