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Guy Heveldt: Reaction to Burling's defection reflects New Zealand's America's Cup apathy
Guy Heveldt • June 24th, 2025 8:00 am
Photo: Georgia Schofield/Photosport
Never has the sentiment towards and about the America’s Cup been so clear.
The news came at around 6pm on Friday – a cynic would say at a carefully planned time at the end of the Matariki public holiday here in New Zealand - the news Peter Burling had signed with Luna Rossa, after having announced he was leaving Team New Zealand a month or so earlier.
I braced for the backlash. One of our greatest ever sailors, a man who’s achieved everything – from Olympic gold, to world championships, to around-the-world ventures and hoisting the Auld Mug as Team New Zealand skipper – was defecting to a long-time America’s Cup rival.
The mind immediately harked back to 2000, when Sir Russell Coutts and Brad Butterworth left the country spinning by signing with Swiss syndicate Alinghi. The pair would then go on to successfully take the Cup away from Team New Zealand in a dominant win a few years later.
For years, the pair, Coutts in particular, were despised by what felt like the entire nation – labelled traitors in many quarters and even worse in others. It was slammed as a national betrayal.
So, fast forward to Burling’s news and I expected at least elements of the same. I did one thing I only very rarely do and read the comments section of various social media posts for a gauge on the feeling towards him. Bearing in mind again, this is a man who’s deemed to be one of our greatest exponents on the water.
I thought there’d be vitriol, disowning, moaning, everything along those lines. But there wasn’t anything of the sort.
What I found was people congratulating and applauding Burling for taking (what we all assume is) more cash and thanking him for what he’d done for sailing here in New Zealand – a stark contrast to a couple of decades ago.
To me, it suggested a few things. One; perhaps we’ve grown up a bit as a country. Two; people understand this is professional sport and these things happen. And three; and what I felt even more, the care factor for the America’s Cup just isn’t the same.
This used to be a patriotic, nation-defining sports event that would have people the length of it on tenterhooks. The images of street parades after the Cup was won for the first, even when Team New Zealand returned with the famous trophy in 2017, will live long in the memory. People cared.
It really doesn’t feel like we, as a whole, do anymore and this reaction to Burling's departure rammed that home for me.
The event is never coming back to these shores, whether Team New Zealand holds the Cup or not. We barely even got to see the team after they won it in Barcelona, we barely hear a lot of meaningful insight between Cups from any of the higher-ups at Team New Zealand, and Sail GP continues to grow. The recipe is missing key ingredients.
Good luck to Peter Burling, go and bank that cash. Come America’s Cup 2027, it won’t bug me, and clearly quite a few others, if he takes the Auld Mug with him back to Italy.
Listen to Guy Heveldt on Millsy & Guy, 3-6pm weekdays on Sport Nation
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