Commonwealth Games: A good bargain for UK?

BIRMINGHAM, July 28

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The organisers were expecting more than a billion people to watch the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony, and over 1.25 million tickets have been sold for the multi-sport competition.

At a cost of around $1 billion, that is not bad bang for your buck — especially when compared to the top-tier extravaganzas like the Olympics, which could cost a host city between $15 billion (2021 Tokyo Summer Games) and $51 billion (2014 Sochi Winter Games).

Birmingham’s ticket sales and viewership expectations may impress but when it comes to finding a host, the “Friendly Games” has been a hard sell for the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF).

Britain’s second city came to the CGF’s rescue in 2017, stepping in as 2022 organisers after Durban, South Africa, was stripped of the event for failing to deliver on promises made in its bid.

The search for a home for the 2026 Games was no less fraught. Victoria in Australia was finally handed hosting duties in April three years after a decision was to be announced as bid after bid got cold feet and dropped out of the running.

Only once since 1998 (Delhi 2010) have the Games not been staged in Australia or Britain.

“I had no idea of the size and scale of this,” said Birmingham 2022 chair John Crabtree, during the CGF congress on Tuesday. “A thousand days became a 1,000 days of sleepless nights. Whenever people asked ‘How is the preparation going?’ I would say — with hands behind my back and fingers crossed — ‘We will be on time and on budget’. And here we are — on time, on budget and we are ready for you.”

Held every four years, the Commonwealth Games were once seen as a major event on the sporting calendar but recently have struggled to retain relevance for both athletes and the general public.

Live events

The Birmingham Games will receive wide coverage in Britain, with the BBC carrying many events live while Australian media is giving it the full Olympics treatment, News Corp Australia alone sending a team of 17 reporters.

But Canada, hosts of the first Commonwealth Games in 1930, will not have a single reporter from the national wire service Canadian Press in Birmingham while national broadcaster CBC will provide coverage mostly through its streaming service. — Reuters