Does Russell Coutts have it right?

The former Alinghi skipper and current Number One for Larry Ellison’s USA America’s Cup effort, has just told the Reuters news service regarding the next America’s Cup event: "All the different stakeholders should be consulted - the teams, the sponsors, the television companies. We are not against discussing change. But this should involve everyone."

Translation: The race is bigger than one man (Ernesto Bertarelli), one committee (America’s Cup Management), one country (Switzerland &/or USA). It’s a global enterprise requiring incremental change between regattas and stability.

Right now, it seems as though participants’ hearts are in the right place (stir up the regatta by choosing faster, more exciting boats, and have the Defender racing alongside the Challengers so they can hone their skills and boats as do the Challengers), and give advertisers something to get excited about. But their heads (egos?) may be adrift.

Consider: By now the boats, the ramp up to the Defense, and the Challengers should all be decided and everyone should know where they are headed. They don’t. No one knows.
Consider: No other professional regatta is conducted in this fashion - - participants know how to prepare their boats, advertisers can prepare their marketing strategies, crews have settled in with their teams, and the sailing press begins flogging the future events with breathless, insider stories of the preparations. (Sail Magazine this issue carried a couple of measly paragraphs about the next race, with no emotion or seeming involvement.)
Is the next America’s Cup a non-event? Non, in the sense of dead in the water as Rome burns and key elements dither?

Or, is the next event being so carefully "orchestrated" behind the scenes that nothing is being left to chance, and we’ll be finding out about it when they’re good and ready?

Is this a sailing event or a matter of "national security," never to see the light of day. Oh, to be a fly on the all in Switzerland and in San Francisco and in New York.