Amateurs and curious bet on the Levante Pier of Alicante watching the exit of the Volvo Ocean Race. Photos: Ainhoa Sánchez

The Generalitat Valenciana is ready to renew with Volvo Ocean Race a contract to extend to two editions the permanence of the Vuelta al Mundo a Vela in Alicante.

The agreement includes the designation of Alicante as the Port of Departure for the 14th and 14th editions (2020-21 and 2023-24, under the current format of the race that is held every three years) and the stay in Alicante of the headquarters of the organization and the Volvo Ocean Race Museum in the Volvo Zone of the Port of Alicante in that period, as the agreement in force expires at the end of 2018.

The Volvo Ocean Race is the only major sporting event that the new regional government - formed by PSPV and Compromys- has not only inherited from the PP, but has decided to expand. The tourist promotion of the city of Alicante thanks to this event, which initially passed through Vigo after leaving England, has convinced Valencian politicians to continue to bet on the way out of the sailing world.

The participants in the last edition of the Volvo, stuck in the pants of Alicante.

The Volvo Ocean Race contributed 274 million euros to the economy of the Valencia Community (47.6 million more in the rest of Spain) and generated the equivalent of 4,833 full-time jobs in the region from 2008 to 2014, according to data from the economic impact study of the consultant PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

Alicante was Port of Departure in the editions 2008-09, 2011-12 and 2014-15 and will be again in 2017-18. The following two editions (2020-21 and 2023-24) would also be held in Alicante following the ratification of the agreement. The Volvo Ocean Race organization established its headquarters in Alicante in 2010.

The Volvo Ocean Race Museum, opened in June 2012 and free of charge, registered 50,488 visits in 2015, 44% from abroad, and 59,456 in 2014, 36% from abroad. In addition, 12,101 children have participated in the free school programme in those two years.

The Vuelta al Mundo a Vela, by teams and with stages, is the longest and hardest sports competition that exists. With 43 years of history, it is celebrated every three years and brings together the best regatists in the world.

This comes to show that maybe, betting on sport and sailing is not so bad business.