America’s Cup: Time to budget for the government, Auckland City, but where is the cash for the Cup?

America’s Cup Minister Stuart Nash is coy about where the money is coming from to lure the New Zealand team to stay at Aotearoa.

Nash will not say whether the government reached the late-January deadline for a new 2021 Budget cash injection for the next defense in 2023.

No America’s Cup winner was confirmed before the deadline to seek a spot in the government books.

Previously, the Government set aside $ 136.5 million to support the last regatta in the 2018 budget.

Both the government and the city of Auckland, which have already spent a combined total of about $ 270 million, are negotiating to convince the New Zealand team to stick with their next defense, which will start in 2023.

A Nash spokeswoman said she would not conduct further interviews “given the Crown’s obligation to conduct good faith negotiations with the Royal NZ Yacht Squadron and its partners.”

The City of Auckland is currently developing its 10-year budget, which sets out planned spending and indicative average rate increases for the next decade.

Mayor Phil Goff did not answer questions about whether provisions were made in the budget, also ongoing before the competition ended. The budget would try to keep average rate hikes at 3.5 percent starting next year.

A spokeswoman for the Auckland Unlimited council-controlled organization said it was too early “and it was not appropriate to speculate on what would happen if or where support would be offered.”

Meanwhile, the approximate $ 5 million offered by the government to help the New Zealand team immediately after the last competition would come from the leftovers of the existing budget, Nash confirmed.

Last year, Team New Zealand began accepting global offers to host the next event. The process, which has been running since October for potential foreign hosts, was closed at the end of February.

Now the government and the city of Auckland have three months to negotiate a deal. Any offer abroad would be weighed against negotiations with the government, which paid a $ 40 million event fee for the latest event.

Speaking last week, Goff said the government and the city of Auckland should “push hard” to hold the next defense, but in the end it was up to the New Zealand team.

“I think with the government’s offer and our offer to continue to improve those facilities at the pier, we have a very good offer that I hope Team New Zealand will accept.”

The decision on what is included in the 2021 Budget would be made by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Associate Finance Ministers Megan Woods and David Parker.

How much did he make?

A 2017 forecast predicted that the America’s Cup would add between $ 600 million and $ 1 billion to New Zealand’s economy, but the impact of Covid-19 and New Zealand’s closed borders meant that the event was now expected to unfold. at a loss.

Auckland Unlimited CEO Nick Hill said it was too early to talk about potential support “that may or may not be offered” to sustain the next defense.

He said the council was still working on an evaluation of the latest event, “which will help inform any potential negotiations.”

The council and the government had hired an outside report to assess the impact of the America’s Cup, Hill said.