If the sporting world handed out an annual trophy to the organisation that proved itself most adept at tapping into public funding, that cup would have long been bolted down in the headquarters of Team
Winston Aldworth: Team NZ win another race for public funding
![Winston Aldworth](https://s3.amazonaws.com/arc-authors/nzme/24c81a49-c923-455d-a091-bed651562208.png)
Regardless, it wasn't enough for Grant Dalton's crew who maintain that the revenue that comes with a Barcelona-based race will give them a better chance to defend the Cup.
As Dalton told Mike Hosking this morning: "The point is if you lose onshore it will never come home. And here's a chance that we'll be funded well enough to take a realistic chance of defending it so we can bring it home."
By this logic, they had to burn the America's Cup village to save the America's Cup village.
But don't blame Dalton. Officials and politicians in Wellington and Auckland should have recognised the mercenary nature of big-league sailing and they should have tied any financial support to cast-iron guarantees that future events would be raced on the Waitemata.
There's a Catalan saying: "Els peixos grossos sempre es menjaran els minuts."
Roughly translated: "The big fish always eat the small ones." Today, Barcelona ate Auckland.
That's no surprise – after all, the Catalan capital is a global centre of cool and a wonderful place to be. It features wide-open boulevards, fabulous museums and galleries and an efficient public transport system – all things that Auckland is a little low on.
At least now we'll have a little extra cash to invest in those things.