Mayor Lee Confident San Francisco's Still An America's Cup Contender
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS)— Even though America's Cup officials announced they've eliminated one of the four remaining contenders for the 2017 regatta, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee says he's confident his city is still in the game.
San Diego, Bermuda and Chicago were the City by the Bay's competition; all hoping to host the race, but according to Russell Coutts, CEO of the two-time defending champions, Oracle Team USA, one of those cities is out.
Mayor Lee said as far as he knows San Francisco is still in the running.
"In fact, as of last Friday we had a great breakfast with a bunch of business leaders with Mr. Coutts. We emphasized that we learned lessons from last year's event and we wanted to do it better," Lee said.
San Francisco hosted the last America's Cup, but it wasn't always smooth sailing. Reports showed that revenue from the race fell well below projections and that it came at a high cost to taxpayers.
Mayor Lee said that would change if the cup were to return to his city.
"We also have offered what we believe to be something very reasonable very attractive and it gets [America's Cup] back to a place where history was made right here in the Bay Area," Lee said.
Coutts said he plans to reduce the number of cities vying for the competition down to two by the end of June.