Tom Slingsby looked as white as a ghost, the sailor’s voice wavering as he tried to make sense of what had happened on the water.

With the F50 catamarans jockeying for position on a busy startline before the final fleet race of the San Francisco Grand Prix in March, Australia’s wingsail crashed down and splintered into fragments.

Speaking to reporters half an hour after the accident, Slingsby felt he and his teammates had narrowly avoided serious injury. He almost made you wonder if the risk of competing was worth it.

Two months later in New York, Slingsby’s demeanor could not have been more different. The color was back in his cheeks as he announced that joining him as co-owners of the Australian SailGP team would be Hollywood actors Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds, with Aussie underwear brand, Bonds, becoming the title partner.

Slingsby, Australia’s team leader, gave up participating in the America’s Cup, traditionally sailing’s most prestigious competition, in 2021 to join the SailGP championship, which had been formed only two years prior.

“A lot of people out there were saying, ‘It’s just another sailing league, it’ll be gone in a couple of years and there’s no way it’ll last,’” Slingsby told The Athletic.

“It’s all funded by Larry Ellison, and it’ll dry up soon.’ That is not the case. We’ve got amazing new partners and sponsors to the point where the league is very self-sufficient.”

The Australian team’s wing broke on the second day of the San Francisco SailGP. (Simon Bruty for SailGP)

SailGP, a championship where 12 national teams race in identical carbon-fiber catamarans head-to-head over a 12-month season, started with funding from Ellison. The American tech billionaire gave the league five years to become financially independent.

Co-founder and CEO Russell Coutts also wanted to make grand prix sailing commercially viable, to drag it from being almost purely reliant on the patronage of wealthy individuals.

In five seasons, the number of teams competing has doubled, 10 of the 12 teams competing this season are privately owned, and the estimated value of a franchise has rocketed from $5million three years ago to $75million.

The championship is expected to continue to expand — though SailGP organisers have set a 20-team maximum cap — but none of the newcomers will receive central funding from the league. Sweden, next season’s new team, has been bought outright by Swedish billionaire Torbjörn Törnqvist.

“It’s nice proving all the naysayers wrong,” Slingsby added. “They said that this wasn’t going to last but I’ve seen the plans for the future — this league is going to be around forever.”

Reynolds and Jackman are not the only famous names involved in the sport. Real Madrid forward Kylian Mbappé bought a stake in the French team in March. Four-time Formula One world champion Sebastian Vettel was a founding investor in the German team, while actor Anne Hathaway is part of the female-led owners of the Italian team.

The U.S. team has a plethora of stars behind them, too, with former Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry last year leading a group of investors who acquired the team for $35million.

So, why are so many famous names jumping on the SailGP bandwagon? It turns out Jackman is a fan but in most cases, these high-profile stars had no connection with sailing.

Several factors are pushing SailGP in a favourable commercial direction, some planned and others down to good timing.

Ben Johnson, global chief revenue officer at SailGP, said the championship is benefiting from the growth of professional sports leagues generally. The NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, for instance, are valued at $12.8billion, a 24 percent rise from their Sportico valuation in 2024.

“Sports investment is experiencing a fascinating moment,” Johnson told The Athletic. “You’re seeing the valuations of NFL and NBA teams hit record numbers that even five years would have seemed impossible. It’s a fascinating moment for us to be part of that broader trend.”

When the Covid-19 pandemic struck in early 2020, the timing for SailGP could hardly have been worse. The championship’s first season took place in 2019, and then the world went into lockdown. But Johnson said the post-pandemic world is a favourable place for a new sport.

Tom Slingsby is one of the world’s most successful sailors and the driver of the Australian team. (Simon Bruty for SailGP)

“We fit into a really interesting post-Covid trend in live events, hospitality and entertainment, where the demand for entertainment and social experiences is at an all-time high. You see this across everything, from music to The Sphere [in Las Vegas].

“All these new entertainment platforms are capturing the attention and imagination. With that comes the opportunity to create something that doesn’t need to replicate a traditional model.

“We don’t need to emulate the traditional sports models, we can focus on growing something new and sustainable.”

Though it has got ‘sail’ in the name, SailGP is keen not to be associated too closely with old-school preconceptions about sailing — including the F50s, which use hydrofoils to launch the body of the boats above the water, reaching speeds of more than 60 miles per hour.

“Our boat, the F50, looks more like a modern aeroplane than a traditional sailboat. We’re using that to capture the enthusiasm and excitement around new audiences,” said Johnson.

“The technology and speed have opened financial opportunities from groups that never had an interest in the sport of sailing. We’re much more around that emerging lifestyle, sports media, and entertainment trend.

“We think SailGP is unique within the modern sports space. It’s one of the few experiences that over-delivers on the promise of something entirely new. To watch a fleet of F50s moving at 60mph in these iconic destinations really pulls.”

The Australian team (left) during practice before their home grand prix in Sydney in  February 2025. (Jon Buckle for SailGP)

Reynolds’ purchase of Welsh soccer club Wrexham with fellow actor Rob McElhenney has already proven successful.

The docuseries Welcome to Wrexham has struck a chord with viewers in the United States, and the rags-to-riches story of a small-town club rising through the English soccer pyramid has galvanized other celebrities to try something similar.

An Amazon Prime series, Built in Birmingham: Brady & the Blues, chronicles NFL great Tom Brady’s minority purchase of English soccer club Birmingham City.

Under owners Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds, Wrexham won three successive promotions and are now competing in English soccer’s second tier. (Kya Banasko/Getty Images)

Former F1 world champion Vettel plays an active role with the German SailGP team and Johnson believed this trend of close involvement would continue to grow.

Perhaps for former athletes who miss the rush that comes with competing, both sports investment and management can help mitigate a sense of loss.

“You’ve seen many ex-athletes, the Tom Bradys of the world, who are now involved in owning individual teams within the sports that they’ve been involved in for many, many years,” said Johnson. “The list of celebrities and athletes is growing, and we think that is a huge strategic opportunity to bridge the gap to their fan bases.”

While Coutts is pleased to see celebrities getting involved in his sport, it was not something he had targeted when he launched the league.

“What you really want is somebody like Ryan Reynolds who’s going to come in and add his marketing flair to the team,” Coutts told The Athletic. “Connecting a name with a team has value but you’re really looking to have them adding value to the team on an ongoing basis.

“Ryan is a marketing genius. He’s got a great sense of humor and you can see what he’s done with his other sports entities. He has the flexibility to do it and we’ll see some great rivalries being developed over the next years. They [the Australian team] are working through what their content plan is. I’ve seen a video they’ve done for internal use only, and it’s freaking hilarious.”

Slingsby said that behind the scenes, Reynolds was as sharp, spontaneous and funny as he appears to be in front of the camera.

“He’s excited to learn about sailing and he’s asking so many questions,” said Slingsby. “You can see he’s got his storyteller glasses on, he’s asking all different questions about, ‘Oh, that’s an interesting angle.’ You can see how he wants to tell the story of our sport in our team differently and what might be a good way to do that.

“But he is hilarious. Honestly, I don’t know how they get him serious because he’s just non-stop making jokes. People around him are like, ‘Come on, Ryan, we’ve got to do this.’ And he’s just making a joke about whatever they want him to do. He’s hilarious, he’s great.”

Through the Australian team, Jackman and Reynolds have bought into the consistently highest-performing crew of the past five years. With just two events to go this season, the ‘Flying Roos’ are first in the standings.

But even the U.S. team, despite languishing at the bottom of the leaderboard this season, has attracted an impressive array of backers. Aside from corporate sponsors Tommy Hilfiger, T-Mobile, and Red Bull, professional sailor and co-owner of the U.S. team Mike Buckley has signed up several celebrities, including actress and producer Issa Rae, world champion heavyweight boxer Deontay Wilder, serial entrepreneur and media personality Gary Vaynerchuk and several NFL and soccer players.

This season’s poor results have done little to water down the commercial appeal of investing in the U.S. team.

One of the simplest explanations for the vast celebrity involvement in SailGP is that team valuations appear likely to keep increasing.

Johnson believes investors have spotted an opportunity that offers good value for money compared with more established sports.

“There’s certainly a price component, as the valuations for traditional sports teams reach tens of billions of dollars,” he said. “It’s created an interest in looking at what’s new and what’s next in global sport and we’ve benefited from that.”

(Top photo: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)