Cup Host Turns Over Television Rights : Yachting: Money problems force hand of America’s Cup Organizing Committee. Foreign syndicates to handle broadcasts.

An ongoing cash shortfall has forced the problem-plagued America’s Cup Organizing Committee to assign worldwide television rights for the regatta to a newly formed organization made up of eight foreign racing syndicates.

ACOC had been organizing television coverage of the yacht races, counting on fees and payments from ESPN and other television networks that are paying for the right to broadcast the regatta to their own countries.

But ACOC President Malin Burnham said Friday that cash-flow problems had forced the organization to turn the television operation over to the Challenger of Record Committee a group representing foreign sailing syndicates in Cup matters, and TWI, a television production company.

The transfer of worldwide television rights was the latest in a string of disappointments for ACOC, the host of the America’s Cup event.

During the past year, the cash-starved organization has been forced to lay off key employees, turn over the operation of a downtown San Diego entertainment complex to a private company and cancel an extravagant opening ceremony.

Friday’s latest announcement should have little impact on the quality of broadcasts made each day from San Diego, industry observers said, because the group representing the foreign syndicates and the new television company have retained most of the highly regarded production team that ACOC had assembled.

“We’ve signed off on the deal and it is in (challenger committee’s) hands,” Burnham said during a Friday afternoon press conference at ACOC’s downtown media center.

Burnham said the transfer would help to ease ACOC’s much-publicized cash-flow problem and guarantee a “high-quality” television feed for networks around the world.

Burnham said the decision to turn television rights over to the challenger committee was driven by “a difference of opinion” based on the foreign sailing syndicates’ role in financing production of the television feed.

While the foreign syndicates weren’t willing to pay any more money with ACOC at the helm, the challenger committee was willing to pump in additional funds if rights were assigned to them, Burnham said.

Starting today, both the challenger committee and TWI will take control of the small army of television camera operators and technicians who will provide feeds from both the American defender and foreign challenger races being conducted on the two America’s Cup race courses off Point Loma.

The challenger committee and TWI “have all the stuff in place” to cover the races, Ernie Taylor, the challenger group’s executive director. “We took the precaution of doing that during the last three weeks. Otherwise, we would be in a terrible situation.”

Taylor said his group began negotiations with ACOC officials nearly a month ago “to get to this end result, . . . (which is) quality coverage of the America’s Cup series of regattas. . . . Today’s agreement will achieve that.”

“Our involvement would really remain relatively unchanged,” said Chris LaPlaca, a spokesman for ESPN, the cable television network that will begin broadcasting America’s Cup races in late March.

While ESPN won’t begin daily broadcasts until March, foreign networks evidently will begin airing feeds provided by the challenger committee and TWI with the start of today’s Louis Vuitton Cup races, which involve eight foreign racing syndicates.

Prior to its financial difficulties, ACOC had hired Geoffrey Mason, a former ABC executive who was roundly applauded for producing ESPN’s 1987 Cup coverage. Mason is now being paid by the challenger committee and TWI, Taylor said.

ESPN and other television networks around the world will pick up the “world feed” produced by the foreign syndicate committee. Individual networks will add their own graphics and provide expert commentary on the daily races.

Times staff writer Rich Roberts contributed to this story.