Is it time to scrap the Commonwealth Games?

The Commonwealth Games will return in 2026 with a vastly stripped-back programme, including the axing of sports such as hockey, badminton and cricket.

The Australian state of Victoria was originally lined up to host the event, but pulled out last year, saying that hosting the Games was proving "all cost and no benefit". Glasgow agreed to step in and host the 2026 competition, but in a cut-price form which has seen 12 sports dropped from the line-up.

While the 2022 Games, hosted in Birmingham, was considered a "roaring success", ultimately this "came at a price", to the tune of £800 million, making it the "most expensive sports event hosted in the UK since the 2012 Olympics", said the BBC. It's been a "struggle" to find a host for the 2030 Games, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer has stepped in to help, said The Guardian. With an increasing list of issues, many believe it is time for the Games to "be overhauled if it is to survive".

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'Waste of time'

The Commonwealth Games is "on borrowed time", said The Telegraph's chief sports reporter Jeremy Wilson. "Cutting sports adrift" has been necessary to save money, but it is hard not to "fear that this latest cut will prove terminal". Indeed, "so cut back, so stripped down, so thinned out" is this Games, the "only surprise is that it's not sponsored by Ozempic", said Jim White in The Independent. It is clear this event is "on its last legs", becoming "ever more expensive and ever less relevant".

The Games is also fighting against a souring reputation in the modern era as it approaches its centenary in 2030. "Even the world's best PR agency" would find it difficult to rebrand an event that first began as the "Empire Games" to show off sporting talent from Britain's colonies, wrote The Guardian's Sean Ingle in 2023.

Given this "chequered history", one must ask "what is even the point of having this event?", said Jacques van der Westhuyzen in South African The Citizen. The Olympics serves as the best vehicle to measure sportspeople "against each other across multiple codes". The Commonwealth Games, particularly in this truncated form, is a "waste of time".

'Olympics-lite'

The Commonwealth Games is an "absolute blast", said David Mark for the Australian ABC, offering a "genuine opportunity for the nations of the Commonwealth to celebrate their diversity in one place", on a world stage outside the Olympics. For athletes, it plays an "invaluable" role at the "mid-point in a four-year Olympic campaign", said Newsroom New Zealand's Angela White. Acting as an "Olympics-lite", this event offers the chance for competitors to "adjust to the 'shock and awe' of a massive, multi-sport event".

But aside from sporting prowess, the Games is also a vital "vehicle for positive change and regional soft power", said Gayle McPherson, director of the research centre for culture, sport and events at the University of the West of Scotland, on The Conversation. In a best-case scenario, a smaller, stripped-back Games will offer smaller member nations the chance to "step up and host", establishing a "different legacy" with the values of "inclusion, diversity and sustainability".