A 30-month dispute over rules canceled a 19-team qualifying event, and made sponsors like Banco Santander SA , UBS AG and Nestle SA jittery, and also reduced the organizing budget to 8 million Euros ($11.1 million) from a record 230 million Euros in 2007, organizers revealed.

The start of the best-of-three sailing regatta in Valencia, Spain, was postponed for two days on account of a lack of regular wind speed today, race officials posted.

"This is not going to be a windfall for anyone", Gary Jobson, the President of U. S. Sailing and the cup-winning navigator in 1977, said in an interview. "It's going to cost them both a lot of money".

Tom Cannon, a sports business professor at the U. K.'s Liverpool University reveals that the economic effect of the 159-year-old event, sailing's oldest competition, is less than 10 percent of the $7 billion last time.

Switzerland's Bertarelli, 44, claimed that his team has strived to grab sponsors to replace UBS and Nestle, which took benefit of the last event to promote its Nespresso brand. The 65-year-old Ellison's BMW-Oracle retained Bayerische Motoren Werke AG while losing backers including insurer Allianz AG.

The race was called off after a four-hour delay. However, race 1 is now scheduled for Wednesday.