Steve Price: Why a regional 2026 Commonwealth Games will be an el cheapo, country sports festival
The crazy plan to hold the ‘26 Commonwealth Games in Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo and Morwell - rather than our sporting capital of Melbourne - is doomed to failure.
Opinion
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If Victorians want to be held responsible for killing off the Commonwealth Games, then we should continue with this crazy plan to run them in the regions.
Over 12 days from March 17 in 2026 the regional cities of Bendigo, Ballarat, Geelong and Morwell will stage the major Commonwealth Games events.
It’s a sporting festival no other Commonwealth country was willing to bid for, so games organisers opted for a scaled down, cheapo country sports festival.
Melbourne will be ignored while Victoria will become a laughing-stock both nationally and internationally. Whatever happened to the proud claim that Melbourne was the sporting capital of the world?
If that claim was ever true – and it’s clearly not that now – why in the hell would you hold a major sporting contest attracting an estimated 6500 athletes from 72 countries and territories and scatter them over four regions?
At a cost to taxpayers of $2.6 billion, including infrastructure builds in all these places, why the hell are we leaving the best stadiums in Australia — the MCG and Marvel with its roof — sit idle?
Surely the greatest asset Melbourne has, to stage a major sporting event like the games, is that we don’t have to build anything other perhaps than some athlete accommodation?
The taxpayers of Victoria have built the tennis centre, a world class hockey complex in Parkville, the MSAC swimming complex in Albert Park and the rectangular AAMI park and it’s all linked by public transport.
Let’s compare that existing list of venues capable of hosting massive crowds with this mad idea of using Eureka Stadium – must say I’ve never heard the Ballarat venue called that – that optimistically will hold 25,000 if they add temporary grandstands.
Why would anyone in their right mind design a sporting event with an open and closing ceremony and run it around a dinky joint like Eureka while the MCG is empty?
It makes absolutely no sense at all.
We have just witnessed the staging of the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England, at Alexander stadium, a nine minute drive from the city centre or just over five kilometres from town.
The Victorian Games organisers are going to ask spectators to travel almost 120km to Ballarat which is a 2hr 30min drive on a good day or a long trip on a slow train.
Surely someone realises if you want people to buy multiple tickets to attend a sport of their passion – say middle distance running – they are not going to make that trip for heats, semis and a final two or three times? Throw in Gippsland, as organisers have done, and explain who wants to go to Morwell to watch anything?
This regionalised version of the games smacks clearly of politics. It has the dark hand of someone in the Andrews Government who has decided there are regional votes to be had at the November state election.
Channelling the superb ABC series pre the Sydney Olympics called The Games, some smarty reckons if Geelong gets a new swim centre with an open-air pool and diving complex, the votes will flow like swimming gold.
Throw in the old promise of cheap, affordable housing once athletes exit villages - built across Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo and in Gippsland - and even more votes flow your way.
The political spin already being attached to this deranged idea is breathtaking. The Government estimates the games will contribute $3bn to the economy and create more than 600 jobs before the event, 3900 during and 3000 jobs when it’s over.
On money alone, if we save the $2.6bn it will cost, and spend that money giving these communities upgraded health assets like hospitals and medical clinics, even schools rather than stadiums, we would be much better off.
To top off the waste of taxpayers’ money being flushed into the regions to shore up votes, the whole project is being overseen by the third arm of the trio that this time last year had us locked up in lockdown number six.
Remember Jerome Weimar, who along with Dan Andrews and Brett Sutton was the public face of playground lockdowns, curfews, protest busting police and arrests of old ladies in parks? Well he’s back.
Weimar is the newly-installed Commonwealth Games Chief - not a bad job for a bloke who contributed to so much Melbourne misery in 2020 and 2021. On Tuesday he bobbed up on the Today show with presenter Ali Langdon.
He was asked about comments from Lord Sebastian Coe, the chairman of World Athletics, who is already throwing shade on this whole regional idea.
He waffled on about upgrades and legacy use facilities and tried to dodge a question about crowd sizes and atmosphere.
Ali should have asked Weimar: ‘Would you rather watch Peter Bol, the 800m silver medallist, or Ollie Hoare winning gold in the 1500 metres in front of 100,000 people under lights at the MCG or 25,000 at Eureka Stadium in Ballarat?’
Quite simply, Melbourne and Victoria have an easy answer here. Ditch the well-meaning, vote harvesting regional thought bubble idea and bring the event to Melbourne.
Use our world class taxpayer funded sports assets for what they are designed for, big crowd events and use the games as an advertisement of Melbourne.
Save most of our $2.6bn and use if for what the regions really need, health and housing and give people from the bush free tickets.
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Originally published as Steve Price: Why a regional 2026 Commonwealth Games will be an el cheapo, country sports festival
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