Comm Games gooorn?
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If the Commonwealth Games survive this, I wonder if they might end up in a permanent venue in the UK. Or perhaps revolving around 2 - 4 cities every four years so that big upgrades aren't always required.
Am in two minds about what it might mean for Victoria bidding for any future global events. On one hand maybe it is 'just' the Commonwealth Games and no-one looks too closely in the future. On the other hand, if they ever pitch for anything major (other than the major stuff they already have), I suspect the event owners may be checking their out clauses much more closely...
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Until KL in 98 I think the only time it was held outside of the UK, Aus, NZ or Canada was Kingston in 66. So generally it's always been in England or the "dominions".
Probably true:
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@Rapido said in Comm Games gooorn?:
@Donsteppa said in Comm Games gooorn?:
Probably an unpopular opinion, but I like the Commonwealth Games.
We can likely pick massive holes in anything below the Olympics, World Cups, or Grand Slams and Tour de France etc, but the next tier is still a lot of fun.
Same. It is madness for NZers (who don't have the equivalent/alternatives of Euro Champs or Asian Games etc) to dog on the Comm Games.
I can understand Brits etc not being too fussed, and Aussies have gotten 'too good' for it. But we (our athletes and our bi-ennial spotlight sporting codes) desperately need it.
This Brit loves it, because Wales gets to compete in its own right
Plus there are sports in the Comms which aren't in the Olympics
e.g. Squash
Last men's final, NZ v Wales -
@Rancid-Schnitzel said in Comm Games gooorn?:
Until KL in 98 I think the only time it was held outside of the UK, Aus, NZ or Canada was Kingston in 66. So generally it's always been in England or the "dominions".
Probably true:
Always strikes me that it's fucking madness not to get the previous host involved in the planning process
They have literally just done it and can give REAL WORLD advice and 'learnings'
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@sparky said in Comm Games gooorn?:
I suspect Sunak will find some ‘levelling-up’ money to host these in the NW or NE of England. Local mayors will jump at the chance too.
Excellent. The XXIII Commonwealth Games in Hartlepool will see a massive upgrade to the 7k capacity of the Vic.
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@Rancid-Schnitzel said in Comm Games gooorn?:
Until KL in 98 I think the only time it was held outside of the UK, Aus, NZ or Canada was Kingston in 66. So generally it's always been in England or the "dominions".
Probably true:
As amusing as that is, I get the feeling they realised they wouldn't have the infrastructure ready in time.
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If the stupid fuckers in charge go down the reparations route then ploughing the money into a Caribbean or African hosted Games would be a far better use of money than just cutting cheques
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I think the comm games is one of those things that's "good for the sport".
For those athletes with the potential to medal at the Olympics it gives them an ideal event to prepare in and gives some athletes the exposure for possibly bigger things.
For those athletes who probably will never medal at the Olympics it gives them something to aim for, a reason to stay in the sport and for a brief period a chance to be a household name and get other people interested in their sport as well.
Any athletic endeavor - even club rugby is hard work, it's hours and hours of training and sacrifice, days way from family, friends and work and revolving a great deal of your life around your sport just to make it work. It's just nice to see people get some reward for that on some sort of stage - even if it's not the world or "the best" stage.
In short as a viewing spectacle no it's never going to be as good as the Olympics or world championship competition but I think for NZ sport as a whole it has a net benefit and a fairly substantial one at that.
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bit gutted actually, im another that likes the buzz around the place when a big event is on, I also quite liked the idea of the region games, actually using it as an excuse to upgrade rail lines and stations (my company was doing some of them) and putting events out in these town where they will use the facilities afterwards. they weren't putting a 100k stadium in Traralgon....they were going to upgrade the lawn bowls and put up some temp stands
I hadn't realised Vic only put up their hand when no one else was a serious contender so it sounds like it was always on the back foot....I think Dan might cop some flak for just dropping this on everyone though, the region mayors saying they didn't know, they didn;t just want the new facilities....they wanted people coming into town and spending some money
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Don't care where it goes.. just drag this fluffybunny through the mud but make it stick, seriously why do victorians vote for this Ahole?
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@bayimports the short answer is most people dont think he's an ahole, still pretty wide support in general, might have dropped the ball on this one but at least he did it before spending loads
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@Kiwiwomble his government signed a contract and went against advice to run it leveraging Melbourne assets, so he still could be spending loads... in penalties..
I have no problem with anyone not hosting an event because a business case doesn't make sense, that is sensible just don't commit first.
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@Kiwiwomble said in Comm Games gooorn?:
@bayimports the short answer is most people dont think he's an ahole, still pretty wide support in general, might have dropped the ball on this one but at least he did it before spending loads
It is testament to the cunning politician that he is - credit where it is due - that people don't unilaterally think he is a lying arsehole. The way he deflects criticism is really quite extraordinary.
This was a great take-down in the AFR today - reserved in it's language being a proper publication, but no less scathing. For those with limited time, this was paragraph summarises where he has led Victorians relative to their Australian compatriots:
Needless spending is now normal in the fantasy governance of Victoria. It already has the highest debt at $171 billion by 2027, the most damaging taxes, the highest business costs, and the lowest credit rating of any Australian state.
The Andrews shambles takes the global stage
Surely this is the last straw for Premier Dan Andrews and the madness of his left-wing populist governing model.Updated Jul 18, 2023 – 6.43pm,
first published at 6.04pmSave
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Just before last November’s state election, Victorian Labor Premier Dan Andrews rode in with a $15 million sponsorship for Netball Australia after mining magnate Gina Rinehart had been told her money wasn’t welcome anymore.Yesterday the debt-laden state blew up the 2026 Commonwealth Games at eight hours’ notice to the Commonwealth Games Federation and its 72 member nations.
July 19, 2023 David Rowe
Mr Andrews ludicrously dressed himself in fiscal rectitude to say that scrapping the Games was not a difficult decision to make. Regrettably it is the right decision for Victoria’s parlous budget, the state of which Mr Andrews is very largely to blame.
It was also a shocking error of judgment – and that special kind of Dan Andrews chutzpah – to bid for an international commitment in April 2022 and then walk away from it 15 months later.
The reputational damage and sovereign risk will weigh on anyone who wants to deal with Victoria in future, and perhaps Australia as well.
At best, the Victorian government looks utterly inept by taking on the Games and then failing by a massive margin to anticipate the cost of an event it last held in 2006.
Surely this is the last straw for Premier Andrews and the madness of his left-wing populist governing model in excessively locking down the state during the pandemic while racking up debt on one spending monument after another.
The latest result of abruptly cancelling the Games, with nearly 300 events and 5,000 athletes, now puts the whole Andrews shambles on the global stage.
It’s a solution straight from the ABC’s satire Utopia.
But even after cutting his losses by trashing Australia’s sporting name, Mr Andrews’ money spending twitch continues.
In 2022, he still thought a Commonwealth Games held largely around the state’s regions would be a great election winning idea.
The ever-wily Mr Andrews hopes he can still win the political medals by continuing the boondoggle spending on regional venues using most of the original $2.6 billion Games budget. He hopes that will keep voters in Ballarat, Bendigo, Shepparton and Gippsland onside.
There just won’t be any international events at those venues. That will save the $4 billion to $5 billion or so extra that having real running and jumping athletes at the Commonwealth Games would have cost.
It’s a solution straight from the ABC’s satire Utopia. And some of the higher costs came from changes which the Victorian government had insisted on itself because of the political wheeze of the regional venues.
Needless spending is now normal in the fantasy governance of Victoria. It already has the highest debt at $171 billion by 2027, the most damaging taxes, the highest business costs, and the lowest credit rating of any Australian state.
Its total post-pandemic debt levels are comparable with NSW. But it’s Victoria that sets off alarms with a debt to revenue ratio at Japanese levels of 200 per cent because of the run-up in debt-funded projects and payroll costs.
Its response has been to squeeze business by doubling down on the most inefficient taxation. This time, there are no public asset sales to bail out the state.
Instead, Mr Andrews is resurrecting the State Electricity Commission, the same electoral gimmick that a regional Commonwealth Games once was.
Delaying the Melbourne airport rail link and the Geelong fast rail link were among the few savings options left. Now the Games has gone, but the empty stadiums will live on. So does Melbourne’s Suburban Rail Loop, which may blow out to $200 billion by the time it is finished.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese demanded in opposition that all big projects with federal funding be assessed by Infrastructure Australia to prevent pork barrelling. But that does not seem to apply to Victorian Labor allies.
Mr Andrews might hope that long-suffering local investors, never mind foreign ones watching on, will be impressed by his financial call. But the blunders in risk and reputational management just blow all that away.
Events like the Olympics, the Pan-American Games and the Asian Games have never left their four-year cycles except for war or pandemic.
Durban in South Africa lost its right to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games over financial worries.
But it’s hard to find a host government unilaterally dumping a massive sporting event itself. Until now.
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@bayimports please dont get me wrong, not so much defending the current situation as a vague attempt at trying to find a "could be worse"
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