Louis Vuitton Cup

The Louis Vuitton Cup was a yachting competition connected with the America's Cup. Between 1983 and 2013, the Louis Vuitton Cup was used as the challenger selection series for the America's Cup. Four out of the eight winners of the Louis Vuitton Cup subsequently won the America's Cup itself. The challenger selection series is now branded as the America's Cup World Series.

In 1970, for the first time in America's Cup history, multiple international challengers competed for the right to challenge the New York Yacht Club, the defender of the America's Cup (the key word being "international": in 1964, for example, two British challengers competed for the right to challenge the NYYC.)

For the 1983 America's Cup match, the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron, the "Challenger of Record", contracted with New York Yacht Club member, Paul Madden, to create "The Challenger's Cup". Paul Madden then contracted with Louis Vuitton to be the first sponsor of this Cup series that led up to the main event. Louis Vuitton offered a trophy to the winner of the challenger selection series; the idea was Paul Madden's, but is generally credited to Bruno Trouble, a French yachtsman. The initial Louis Vuitton Cup was contested off Newport, United States, with Australia II prevailing, thereby earning the right to meet the NYYC’s defending yacht Liberty in that year’s America’s Cup.

With the exception of the America's Cup races in 1988 and 2010, the winner of the Louis Vuitton Cup has been awarded the right to challenge the current defender for the America's Cup. During the 1992 and 1995 regattas Citizen Watch offered a trophy to the winner of the defender selection series (the Citizen Cup) as the defense’s counterpart to the Louis Vuitton cup.

Due to the large number of challengers in recent decades the Louis Vuitton Cup has had to eliminate challengers in two phases. A round-robin points accruing phase, and then a pair of semi-finals involving the top four, followed by a final between the top two. The semi-finals and finals are a best of nine races between two boats.

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