Canada’s SailGP Team Is Reborn Under New Ownership and a Strengthened Sense of National Pride
Go Team Canada.
Photo by Jon Buckle for SailGP.
While SailGP remains relatively low-profile on the calendar of global sports, the league is aiming to build a Formula One-like foundation with deep fan engagement and authentic storylines among its 12 teams. In only its fifth season, it competes nearly monthly in venues around the world and is draped in sponsorships from quintessential names in sport such as Rolex, Red Bull, and Emirates.
The current version of Team Canada is the NorthStar SailGP Team, carried by the relatively new ownership of biotech entrepreneur and former emergency medicine doctor Greg Bailey. The Torontonian took control of the team in August 2024.
“From early conversations, it was clear Dr. Bailey shared our commitment to performance on and off the water: that he had a clear vision for a Canadian team that could get to—and stay—at the front of the fleet,” says SailGP managing director Andy Thompson.
Photo by Bob Martin for SailGP.
Before purchasing the team, Bailey was on the hunt for other sports-related ownership opportunities, looking at major sports properties like F1, the NBA, and the Premier League. While he was particularly driven by the capacity to use sports to drive biotech investment, he worked closely with Phil Kennard, who had a background in sports sponsorship and would become NorthStar’s CEO.
“SailGP has really hit onto something,” Kennard says. “It’s a new form of hydrofoiling that allows the vessels to travel within close proximity, almost like a racing product. It’s getting new audiences, and they are becoming interested in the nation-versus-nation aspect.”
The sport certainly has comparisons to F1. The 12 teams (representing different nations) compete at a specific venue (next up: the waters near New York’s Governors Island) in a high-speed battle on catamarans featuring the latest in sailing tech. The teams sail a predetermined course and must hit different benchmarks along the way to earn points. It all works toward a year-end championship and a portion of an almost $18-million prize pot. Teams are mic’ed and have live cameras to get spectators as close as possible to the action.
For the entity formerly known as Team Canada, the adventure almost ended as quickly as it started. The team debuted in 2023 and was set to fold following a lack of funding at the end of the season. Bailey says he was close to buying a stake in the German team when the Canadian opportunity arose. “Phil was pitch perfect,” he says. “Because of him, I was willing to step up for the Canadian team.”
Photo by Jon Buckle for SailGP.
One attractive element of SailGP is that the teams are littered with champion athletes and Olympians. NorthStar athlete Annie Haeger joined the team in 2023 after a career including a 2016 Olympics appearance and other sailing accolades. Haeger is American but married to a Canadian sailor, Luke Ramsay. The pair wanted to start a family, so she retired following the Rio Games, only to see renewed opportunities in SailGP.
“As a female, there just weren’t a ton of professional sailing options [in 2016],” she says. “What SailGP has done is push the sport forward from a technology perspective and make it more commercially digestible.” She’s part of a NorthStar team that currently sits fifth in the championship, only five points off the lead. The ethos around NorthStar is that the team simply doesn’t want to represent Canada, it wants to compete and win.
SailGP has a nationality rule where at least half of the sailors on board at any given time must be from the representing country, which adds a dash of fervour to a moment when nationalistic viewpoints are surging. NorthStar has a mix of domestic and international talent but is aiming to bring more Canadians into the sport with WeCANFoil, a development program to discover and train new elite sailors. “It puts Canadians on cutting-edge boats, and we hope in the future that we can get some of those athletes,” Kennard says.
Photo by Ricardo Pinto for SailGP.
There’s certainly a long-game approach within SailGP, given it’s a relatively nascent league. The next milestone for Canadians will be the return of the Halifax event in June 2026, bringing a waterborne sport to an area with rich maritime history.
“Canada has quickly become one of our most engaged markets, with a fan base that’s grown year on year since joining the championship,” Thompson says. “Reintroducing Halifax to the championship from 2026 will be a big moment for SailGP, for Canada, and the NorthStar Canada team, and we look forward to one of our biggest events next year with thousands of people lining the shore.”
