OPINION: This isn't the Team NZ I thought it was.
Team someone else, sailing somewhere else. Man, I've fast lost interest.
I would have thought a Kiwi team would demand to race at home, home advantage, familiar waters, die hard loyal fans.
Hello this is part of the prize - and perk - win the Cup, race it at home, hold the cup, hold home advantage until some other syndicate can work out how to go faster.
Chuck in a hundred million from the Government and Council - a handout for the sporting rich that ultimately Grant Dalton turned his nose up at. Doesn't cut it.
I think it's obvious why Dalton has turned his back on New Zealand - I believe he has already secured an overseas payday and support deal much bigger than we can compete with.
I think it was a sham negotiation - we were never in the race.
We've been played and our Government has been thrown off the bow of the boat to the sharks. Are our ministers commercially naive and inexperienced? Probably, but that's not why we lost hosting rights.
We probably should have linked giving the money last time to hosting it again. No Money for Auckland 2021 unless you sail here in 2024, or whenever.
I struggle to identify with this team all of a sudden.
All the disruption, all the rules bent, an America's Cup Village built on the best real estate public money can buy.
No wonder Dalton has kept a low profile and off the daily TV shows. He's not quite Sir Russell Coutts or Brad Butterworth but he won't be popular.
Now I get it. Now I know why Dalton turned down a ticker tape parade.
He couldn't look us in the eye for a minute longer - knowing he'd be waving good bye shortly.
This idea that we can't do it in New Zealand is utter crap.
What? Suddenly the brilliant battling Kiwi who can do anything can no longer fly?
We have been fooled for years that this is a yachting challenge that pits nation against nation.
It never did. We just got caught up in the nationalistic thing - Team NZ- red socks, yeah that's us.
Really it's cutthroat international commerce and we just got taken for a ride.
Duncan Garner hosts The AM Show.
