Decision to decentralise Commonwealth Games only part of the problem
In a week where Australia is successfully staging the FIFA Women's World Cup, Victoria decided to cancel hosting the 2026 Commonwealth Games citing cost blow outs into the billions. The announcement has far-reaching ramifications for athletes, sporting bodies, the games itself and soft diplomacy. So why are some large-scale sporting events viable and others not?
Transcript
00:00 Yeah, there's really two drivers for events success. Firstly, and fundamentally is tourism.
00:06 And secondly, is about the global broadcast reach. You know, the Commonwealth Games appeals
00:10 to about a third of the global population, thanks to countries like India. So it is still
00:14 a rather significant international event. But it's really from a tourism perspective,
00:18 where it is probably at that second level.
00:20 I mean, how much is it about getting the money back on these games? Like, you know, it does
00:25 it just solely depend on the tourism that is brought to the local economies?
00:30 Yeah, there's really two drivers for events success. Firstly, and fundamentally is tourism.
00:35 And secondly, is about the global broadcast reach. You know, the Commonwealth Games appeals
00:40 to about a third of the global population, thanks to countries like India. So it is still
00:43 a rather significant international event. But it's really from a tourism perspective,
00:48 where it is probably at that second level compared to a FIFA World Cup or an Olympic
00:51 Games.
00:52 Andrew cited, you know, massive cost blowouts into the billions. And that was a decision
00:58 was actually welcomed by some saying that actually prefer that money to be spent on
01:01 services such as hospitals, education, etc. Is that a fair point?
01:06 Not particularly, it certainly smacks of whataboutism. It's not like money isn't already invested
01:11 into those areas. And certainly the whole purpose of hosting mega events is to have
01:15 economic impact through things such as tourism and to have a legacy through infrastructure.
01:20 So certainly it's not a case of one or the other. Successful governments try to have
01:25 a portfolio of investments to try produce the maximum possible impact for communities.
01:30 We know, Hunter, as we said in the introduction that the Women's World Cup is being successfully
01:34 staged here and in New Zealand. Olympics are staged every four years. What models do work?
01:43 Certainly when we look at the absolute premium world events, they are underpinned by tourism
01:48 and having very large global appeal. And the Commonwealth Games is sort of stuck in the
01:53 middle of not quite being at the most preeminent end of the spectrum. So models that rely on
01:58 fewer sports certainly work better. So if we think about the FIFA World Cup or the Men's
02:02 World Cup or Cricket World Cups, they're logistically easier to run because you have fewer absolute
02:07 athletes and obviously only one type of sport to run. Whereas the multi-sport models such
02:12 as the Olympics, the Comm Games just create an incredible amount of complexity because
02:16 the Olympics has 10,000 athletes and the Comm Games 5,000. So you're talking about a whole
02:21 extra layer of complexity. When you look at the loss of the games for
02:25 2026 being cancelled in Victoria, what are the ramifications for the athletes, kids getting
02:30 into sport and indeed going as far as looking at soft diplomacy?
02:35 There's a huge amount of implications here for a bunch of stakeholders. For athletes,
02:39 obviously they plan their very short career spans over four to six to 10 years if they're
02:44 very lucky. And so there's only so many opportunities to compete at the absolute elite level. And
02:48 for many athletes, the Comm Games will be the highest level. If we look at a country
02:52 like Papua New Guinea, they've never won a gold medal at the Olympics, yet they're able
02:56 to compete at the Comm Games, for instance. And that's true for many of our partners in
03:00 the Asia Pacific region. And that really brings us into the implications for soft power and
03:04 soft diplomacy. We've seen Anthony Albanese tour India, the world's most populous country
03:09 now and increasingly want to grow his ties in the Asia Pacific region. And these are
03:14 fundamentally Commonwealth countries. So whilst a lot of people talk about what is the relevance
03:18 of the Comm Games, certainly one of its benefits is in terms of soft power in an area that's
03:24 increasingly important geopolitically. Just finally, Hunter, I mean, does this cancellation
03:28 spell the end for the Commonwealth Games in your opinion?
03:32 It very may well. Unfortunately, if there is not another host found, there are issues
03:37 around continuity through to 2023, 2030, should I say, and then more broadly around the brand
03:44 damage caused and whether future hosts will want to put their hands up to host. So undoubtedly,
03:49 it's a real existential moment for the Games.
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