The first edition of America’s Cup dates back to 1851 and is the oldest sporting competition in the world if we consider the Olympic Games only in its modern era, and the third most important sporting event after the Summer Olympics and the Football World Cup. The final race series of the 37th America’s Cup is scheduled to be held in Barcelona in autumn 2024. This year’s America’s Cup will also feature an all-women’s race for the first time and a major engineering project is planned to provide hydrogen propulsion for the motorised chase boats normally used in the competition.
After a tough battle with three other cities, Malaga, Cork (Ireland), and Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), the current champion of the competition and organiser of the next edition, Emirates Team New Zealand, decided last 29 March that Barcelona will host this global sporting event.
The work carried out by Toda & Nel-lo’s team has been quite a challenge due to the size and importance of the public-private collaboration project that has been carried out, given the composition of the candidature, and the tight deadlines that have finally been managed to assemble all the elements of this, in view of the existing deadline for the election of the venue. Barcelona & Partners, an agency belonging to the non-profit organisation Barcelona Global, has also participated in the design of the economic aspects of the candidature and in the negotiation of its terms with Emirates Team New Zealand.
A multidisciplinary team from Toda & Nel-lo, led by founding partner Ignacio Toda and counsel Javier Hernández, advised Barcelona’s bid to host the 37th edition of America’s Cup, including different Catalan public administrations (including the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Barcelona City Council, the Port of Barcelona, the Barcelona Provincial Council and the Barcelona Tourism consortium) as well as a large group of private individuals.
