It’s the question still hanging over Brisbane’s 2032 Olympics, which made Victoria cancel its Commonwealth Games: do such mega events pay their own way? The evidence suggests they’re unlikely to.
There will likely be a settlement between Victoria and the games organisers for breaching the contract. But the Commonwealth Games may be the ones to suffer long-term reputational damage.
Hosting the Games has seem Birmingham dotted with new infrastructure and amenities. But the city’s pioneering transformation began over a 100 years ago.
Behind the built-up glitz of Surfers Paradise lies a deep history that has been written and overwritten in successive layers that have become thinner and thinner as time goes on.
Commonwealth Games netball is an intensely physical and competitive affair. It’s a far cry from netball’s roots – the game was designed to shape women into model middle-class citizens.
The Commonwealth Games do not get the same level of media coverage as the Olympics. But a one-time Commonwealth gold medallist says the Games are still an important athletic competition.
Preparations for next month’s Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast are pushing homeless people out of town, and out of the state. Sadly, that’s not unusual for events of this sort.
Sporting extravaganzas are a way for globalising cities in emerging market economies to try and play the “modernity game”. But they don’t make the rules, and so they can never “win”.