For Breakers franchise seeking ‘path to profitability’
I think we’re going to be able to bring some resources in terms of our NBA connections that will help the Breakers.
a sports and men’s lifestyle media organisation, while Walsh has appeared on multiple Barstool platforms. It is a curious fit for a Breakers club which loves to hammer home its emphasis on “family values”.
While the somewhat-satirical podcast is free of controversy and unobjectionable, Barstool itself has a history of misogynistic and distasteful comments.
In the past, the Barstool owner Dave Portnoy has uttered the following: “If you’re a size 6 and you’re wearing skinny jeans you kind of deserve to be raped right?”
Additionally, just this month, Barstool Radio host Patrick Connor called 17-year-old Olympian Chloe Kim a “little hot piece of ass” — a comment which had him fired from his other job at KNBR in California.
To be clear, none of the new ownership group have been involved in Barstool’s many controversies, but it could be constructed as a tad hypocritical for the moralistic Breakers to welcoming in partowners with ties to that company.
However, Paul Blackwell, who is staying on as a director and minority shareholder, says the consortium led by Walsh is just as committed to maintaining the club’s family values.
“We talked a lot about the fit necessary to maintain the core beliefs Matt Walsh that the Breakers have grown from — the values and behaviours that are acceptable in our minds and the minds of the fans. Matt and I shared a familiar family focus and belief in foundations and principles.”
Walsh knows it will be difficult to live up to the success achieved by the Blackwells, but is eager to try.
“They’ve set the bar really high, I’m not sure that we’ll be able to do it, but I’m looking forward to the challenge.”
Will the ownership change create a brighter future for the Breakers? At this stage, it’s impossible to say. But one thing is for sure — the future of the Breakers will be more interesting. fleet without a New Zealand sailor on board, was also in the hunt to be first into Auckland.
Scallywag was in stealth mode until yesterday afternoon.
In that time it had sneaked past Turn the Tide on Plastic.
The leaders were expected to arrive in Auckland about 2am tomorrow.
Blair Tuke's MAPFRE were about 235 kilometres behind Scallywag, just ahead of Daryl Wislang and Stu Bannatyne's Dongfeng Race Team, while Peter Burling's Team Brunel had fallen to the rear of the field, 300km behind the leaders.
The estimated arrival time is slightly slower than was expected at the beginning of the leg.
While the fleet looked on track to be in Auckland today — or even earlier at the start of the leg — when the boats entered the doldrums progress slowed right down.
The doldrums are a common term used by sailors to describe the areas around the equator where the north and south trade winds collide.
Due to the heat of the area, the warm airs rise, causing persistent bands of showers and storms around the Earth's midsection.
There is often little surface wind in this area of the world, which can becalm ships.
The fleet navigated the first, smaller lot of doldrums earlier in the race fairly easily.
However through the larger block between the equator and Vanuatu, the fleet had to battle with wind speeds as low as two knots and it was a struggle to make any real progress at times. But since getting out of the doldrums the fleet had been given a nice lift on the eastern trade winds and were now set for an exciting finish.
After reaching Auckland, the crews will have a few days off from racing, before a practice race on March 9 ahead of March 10's in-port race.
Auckland is the seventh port the race has visited, after setting out from Alicante, Spain, with another five stops to come — Itajai (Brazil), Newport (US), Cardiff, Gothenburg and finally ending at The Hague. — Christopher Reive