For three days each October the entire city – population about 60,000 – is abuzz.

Every motel is booked out, the mall is full, food trucks are lined up wall-to-wall along the side of the pitches and getting a seat at a cafe or restaurant without a booking is nigh-on impossible.

According to the Greater Shepparton City Council, last year’s tournament injected more than $2.5 million into the local economy.

The cost, meanwhile, can’t have been more than $200,000. That’s a serious return on investment.

It’s something worth considering now the NT Government has cancelled next year’s Arafura Games.

Because in comparison, the Games look like a pretty bad investment.

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By the time the budget for last year’s Games had blown out, they cost Territory taxpayers $7.2 million.

Despite this enormous outlay, the Games attracted just 1762 athletes and 6215 visitors.

That’s a long way short of the 10,500 people heading to Shepparton for a soccer tournament.

And let’s not forget the NT Government had to foot the bill for the flights and accommodation of many international athletes at the Arafura Games.

Given they couldn’t afford their flights, it’s unlikely they had much cash to throw around once they arrived.

In the final wash-up, the Government said the Games injected $7.1 million into the NT economy.

That’s a $100,000 loss (unless you count the $6.53 million of “indirect benefit” included in the Government-commissioned report that was used to deem the Games a success.)

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One of the main reasons for launching the Games back in 1991 was to drive Asian engagement. To let our near-northern neighbours know about this tiny city on Australia’s northern tip.

But budget airlines and a little thing called the internet have long broken down the barriers that existed between Darwin and the Asia-Pacific almost three decades ago.

Still, we persist with the Arafura Games and all its extravagance.

Opening and closing ceremonies, concerts and mascots, all for an event that – with the exception of the sepak takraw – reaches few heights as a sporting spectacle.

For local sporting bodies the Games are often more of an inconvenience than an event to look forward to.

Netball NT chief executive Ian Harkness spilled the beans at a press conference this week.

Netball was yet to sign up for the 2021 Games amid concerns about a disparity in talent between teams and the interruption to the domestic season.

“Your most important client is your domestic client, and I think sometimes to disrupt your domestic season – I’m not sure that breaking up your domestic season in the month of May shortly after you start is necessarily the best idea for your membership,” he said.

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It’s a view shared by other sports, though few have the courage to publicly stray from the Everything is Awesome mantra, lest they be cut off from the hand that feeds them.

Coronavirus finally killed the 2021 Games.

But the perilous budget situation we now find ourselves in will mean every bit of government spending will need to be reassessed.

It doesn’t mean everything needs to be cut, but governments will need to be smarter about how they spend our money.

And there are far smarter ways to spend $7.2 million than on the Arafura Games.

Imagine, for instance, a major junior soccer tournament played during the dry season holidays.

Thousands of kids would flock to play on the pristine pitches at Marrara and Bagot Park.

Their families, having escaped the southern winter, would no doubt stay and make a holiday of it in the Top End.

The cost would be minuscule compared with the Arafura Games, and the benefit likely bigger.

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But let’s be honest. The Government’s motivation for bringing back the Arafura Games was never about the economic benefit.

How else could you explain the announcement at last year’s closing ceremony that the Games would be back in 2021, months before any assessment had been done on the 2019 event?

This was all about politics.

The CLP and Terry Mills had scrapped the Games and Labor had brought it back.

Everyone had a wild old time and the Games would go on forever, even if the economics didn’t stack up.

Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt.