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Cup Board Is Seeking Sponsors : Sailing: Organizing committee says outside funds are need to stage 1992 America’s Cup.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

With nowhere else to turn, the financially troubled America’s Cup Organizing Committee, with the blessings of the board of directors, will seek help from corporate America and the worldwide corporate market to stage the 1992 America’s Cup.

The ACOC announced Wednesday that it would pursue corporate sponsorship, something it had avoided out of respect to the fund-raising efforts of the foreign challengers and the two defense syndicates.

The news came on the heels of the announcement by Tom Ehman, ACOC executive vice president and general manager that ACOC President Malin Burnham had forgiven a $2 million loan to the ACOC--which he made during the 1988 America’s Cup campaign--and that a anonymous board member had come through with a $500,000 loan.

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Ehman said the ACOC will continue to streamline operations, which might include more staff reductions “as necessary”--it laid off seven employees this week--but could rehire some of them back if the “cash flow continues to improve.”

Another partial quick fix in the ACOC’s beleaguered financial situation was Ehman’s announcement that it has contracts in hand for revenue in excess of over $800,000 over the next 30 days. Ehman wouldn’t divulge how much the ACOC planned or needed to raise, but said it would have to be as much as possible, as soon as possible.

“The board made a decision today,” Ehman said, who added that potential corporate sponsors have expressed interest, but he wouldn’t identify any. “After staying out of the corporate marketplace as long as possible in deference to the syndicates, particularly the defense syndicates, the board has authorized us to move forward and seek corporate sponsorship for the event, which we have always anticipated doing, but held off as long to allow the syndicates to do their corporate marketing.

“We have always had in our budget the ability, the expectation--and the syndicates know this--to raise at least $2.5 million from corporate sponsors. . . . But now, given our cash situation, given the relatively short time remaining, we now must go into the corporate marketplace.”

Already in that marketplace, of course, are 10 challenger and defense syndicates, representing nine countries, including the United States’ Team Dennis Conner and America-3.

Bill Koch’s America-3 syndicate has a $40-million budget--$25 million from private funds and $15 million hoped to be generated from corporations and individuals.

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Barbara Wolfe, representing America-3, said the ACOC entering the sponsorship market only drives up the stakes.

“There’s going to be competition,” Wolfe said. “Everyone’s going after the same dollars.”

Jerry La Dow, executive director of Team Dennis Conner, said his camp isn’t worried about losing its potential sponsors to the ACOC.

“We’re satisfied that they wouldn’t go after a client we are negotiating with,” he said. “We really are not in a position to complain about it, because they have stayed out as long as they have. We’re happy these guys have resolved their problems.”

Barbara Schwartz, another representative of Team Dennis Conner, said the fund-raising market is “soft,” and she likes to think the syndicate can benefit by “working more together (with the ACOC).”

“It’s business as usual for us,” Schwartz said. “We felt the ACOC was capable of fixing the financial situation and we’re comfortable with the terms. Our fund-raising efforts will stay the same.”

Conner still is trying to reach his $20-million budget for a two-boat campaign. Italy, Japan, New Zealand and France all have at least two boats.

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That the ACOC will hunt worldwide for sponsorship might step on even more toes. But it in wake of the hard economic times, it was probably inevitable.

“There’s no money in corporate America right now, not as much as they need,” said Marisa Vallbona-Rayner, a spokeswoman for Spain’s Desafio Espana Copa America syndicate. “They have to do what they have to do to stay alive. We support them in raising funds, just don’t play in my back yard.”

Most of the ACOC’s money woes--creditors are owed as much as $1.5 million, it has been reported, a figure Ehman wouldn’t confirm or deny--stem from a costly IACC World Championship, staged here in May, which failed to bring in expected revenue.

Ehman did say that the ACOC, a non-profit corporation formed by the San Diego Yacht Club to manage and conduct the 1992 America’s Cup, has whittled its debt from the 1988 America’s Cup from $4.6 million to $1 million.

The ACOC is close to budget, “within a couple hundred thousand dollars of the budget campaign today,” and reports of the ACOC going bankrupt were exaggerated, Ehman said. As to how it got in this quandary in the first place--besides the debt accrued from 1988--he said:

“No. 1 because we stayed out of the corporate marketplace as long as we have, and No. 2, because we have not gotten foreign television rights, proceeds in as quickly as we hoped.”

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