Volvo Ocean Race by the numbers

Here we finally have some good and realistic communication from Volvo Ocean Race Management: - If all the boats fall apart, or even if we are down to just two, we will have a problem. But by the time we get to the last leg, from New York to Portsmouth, everyone will be talking about how tough and strong they really are, said Anders Lofgren, commercial director for the Volvo Ocean Race, in Sweden Wednesday.

He spoke to Paul Weaver in The Guardian and managed to get some of the message through with the use of numbers and statements from success cases.

Here’s the numbers:
Volvo invested £30m, spread over a four-year period, when they took over from Whitbread as sponsors for the 2001-02 event.
Main sponsors have paid between £8m and £15m per boat…
…and according to Bourke they will get "four or five times that return on their investment.
Over 811m viewers watched the last leg.

- The extra money we paid for our sponsorship, which was €20m [£13.7m], has paid dividends because it gave us more time to prepare and more time in the water than the others. This is our first major global sponsorship and we are delighted it has been such a success so far. Our target was €60m [£41m] of media value worldwide and we are well on the way to achieving that, said a spokesperson for ABN AMRO.