Culture

Storyboard Podcast: Transforming the America's Cup Into Good TV

Let’s face it: Yacht racing is not the most accessible sport. The boats are expensive, the rules are fairly arcane, and sometimes even the sailors have no idea who’s winning. But tweak the rules, speed up the boats, and throw in a little augmented reality and you just might have some must-see-TV on your hands. On this episode of the Storyboard podcast, Wired’s America’s Cup correspondent Adam Fisher joins senior editor Adam Rogers to explain why there’s never been a better time to start watching the America’s Cup.
Photo courtesy Adam Fisher
Photo courtesy of Adam Fisher

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Let’s face it: Yacht racing is not the most accessible sport. The boats are expensive, the rules are fairly arcane, and sometimes even the sailors have no idea who’s winning. But tweak the rules, speed up the boats, and throw in a little augmented reality and you just might have some must-see-TV on your hands.

Storyboard Audio Podcast

Storyboard Podcast: Episode 91

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Wired dispatched America’s Cup correspondent Adam Fisher to cover how technology is changing sailing’s biggest race for the September issue. On this episode of the Storyboard podcast, he joins senior editor Adam Rogers to explain why there’s never been a better time to start watching the America’s Cup.

“Everything is done with the spectator in mind,” he says — even when the sailors and their technology have a hard time keeping up.

If shore-grazing routes, fleet-wide pile-ups, and the most extreme sailboats ever built aren’t enough to turn you into an America’s Cup viewer, we don’t know what can.