AC35: SI's "TV Guide" for the USA

FOR THOSE OF YOU IN THE USA, America's Cup 35 will be carried by the NBC Sports Network (that's the​​ NBC cable offering for sports, not available everywhere in the USA*) and via their online app which is available on your phone or tablet and should work anywhere that you have a decent internet connection. The app worked well last summer during the Rio Olympics. Racing is scheduled to take place from 1400-1600 Atlantic Time (Bermuda is one hour ahead of New York), 1300-1500 Eastern, 1000-1200 Pacific.

However, this Friday's first day of racing will be held 1700-1900 in Bermuda (1600-1800 Eastern, 1300-1500 on the West Coast).

Round Robin racing – all six teams, including for the first time in AC history the Defender – continues through Saturday June 3rd, with Thursday June 1st a reserve day (no scheduled racing).

The full calendar of race pairings and times through the end of AC35 is not easy to find online; we finally found it on americascup.com here. And ACEA has just issued a press release with the full TV schedule through the end of the Match.

Some of the racing during the Challenger Series will only be carried on the NBC Sports App. Four race days during the America's Cup Match (finals) will be carried by the main NBC network – the opening weekend June 17-18, and the following weekend June 24-25.

Now you might think that the NBC Sports Network website would have a link on their page to a sub-page highlighting the AC schedule and event. If you can find one, you are a better online denizen than our team here at SAILING ILLUSTRATED (and, believe me, we're pretty good).

You will find a button for "Dog Show" but not "America's Cup." (LOL, I know what you're thinking – maybe the AC's link is "Cat Show.") And don't bother searching for the term "America's Cup" – it returns nothing related to AC35.

I finally found something when scrolling through this week's NBCSN schedule to this Friday – "Sailing: America's Cup: Fleet Racing." Of course the America's Cup is now all Match Racing unless NBC knows something we don't. A screen print of what we found....

OK, nobody's perfect least of all me. More importantly, here are Friday's race pairings:

Race 1 – USA v. FRA

Race 2 – SWE v. JPN

Race 3 – FRA v. NZL

Race 4 – GBR v. SWE

Remember, each race is only 20 minutes long – 80 minutes of racing in a 120-minute show. 40 minutes for a brief highlights package at the end of each race, time between matches, weather delays, an intro at the top of the show and a recap of the day's racing at the end. Happy viewing!

*The NBC Sports Network website has a Channel Finder that, in theory, allows you to enter your zip code and it will tell you what channel NBCSN occupies on your local cable system. It doesn't work for any of the zip codes I tried (our home in SD, the SI office in SF, my folks in Michigan, not even the spiritual home of the America's Cup, Newport, RI 02840). For those of you in the Bay Area on Comcast/Xfinity, NBCSN is channel 723. If you have satellite TV, on DISH TV NBCSN is Channel 159; and channels 220 and 1220 (on demand) on DirecTV. For the rest of you, check your local listings as we are told that NBCSN is available on most cable systems.