Explained: Why Victoria pulling out threatens the very exence of the Commonwealth Games

There is a billion-dollar question mark over the host of the next Commonwealth Games in 2026 after the Australian state of Victoria announced that it was terminating its contract to host the event. The announcement leaves the Commonwealth Games Federation in an anxious scramble to find a replacement less than 1,000 days before the event. It also once again raises questions over the relevance and feasibility of the Games themselves. The high prohibitive costs of hosting the CWG have meant not many are keen on taking on the mantle. In fact, the pull out comes a month after the CGF had announced its strategic plan, called ‘Commonwealth United’, one of the goals of which was to “establish a diverse and sustainable hosting pipeline for Commonwealth Games and events and maximise the impact and legacy outcomes of the Commonwealth Games.” With Victoria’s pull out, the CWG finds itself severely orphaned with its very exence under threat. We break down the decision and what it could mean for the Games going ahead:
While making the announcement, Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said that the cost of hosting the 2026 edition had risen to about Aus $7 billion (nearly $5 billion), which was almost three times the original estimate of Aus $2.6 billion.
What is the CGF saying?
The CGF, meanwhile, pointed fingers at the state of Victoria for the dramatic rise in costs for hosting.
“The reasons given (for the pullout) are financial. The numbers quoted to us today are 50 percent more than those advised to the Organising Committee board at its meeting in June. These figures are attributed to price escalation primarily due to the unique regional delivery model that Victoria chose for these Games, and in particular relate to village and venue builds and transport infrastructure. Since awarding Victoria the Games, the Government has made decisions to include more sports and an additional regional hub, and changed plans for venues, all of which have added considerable expense, often against the advice of the CGF and Commonwealth Games Australia (CGA),” the CGF said in a statement.
What was the ‘unique regional delivery model’?
Rather than a single-city host, Victoria 2026 was supposed to be hosted in 25 venues spread across five cities of Geelong, Bendigo, Ballarat, Gippsland and Shepparton. The Games program was to include 20 sports and nine fully-integrated Para sports.

Australia was due to host the Commonwealth Games, but Daniel Andrews has announced that it is ‘too expensive’.
Find out more 👉 https://t.co/7yTsyGZ0TZ pic.twitter.com/UPT7JYisXa
— Sky News (@SkyNews) July 18, 2023
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
What’s the case against hosting the Commonwealth Games?
If the predicted numbers put forth the Victoria government are accurate, forking out nearly $5 billion to host the Commonwealth Games is an eye-watering price when compared to the $12.9 billion it cost Japan to host the pandemic-deferred Olympics Games.
Of this, the International Olympic Committee paid $1.7 billion to the organising committee of Tokyo 2020 (IOC will pay the same amount to the OC of Paris 2024.)
On the other hand, Birmingham 2022 organisers are reported to have paid CGF $5.5 million a year as hosting fee. The total amount paid Birmingham to CGF was around $34.3 million, of which $27.5 million was hosting fees and $6.9 million was a grant for development work.
Then there is the other question of the CWG providing bang for the buck.
At the recent Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, the biggest stars on the program were Elaine Thompson-Herah and Emma McKeon. Hosting the Olympics, on the other hand, comes with the promise of bringing the world’s best stars and the world’s top nations like the USA, Russia and China to town.
One of the benefits touted IOC, CGF, and governments alike of hosting a multi-disciplinary games is the opportunity for the host city and country to showcase themselves as a tour destination in the future. But since there are just 71 nations and territories in the CWG fold as compared to the over 200 nations that are represented at the Olympics, the global interest in the CWG is also reduced.

Why has it been a rocky road to CWG 2026?
Finding a host for the 2026 edition of the CWG has been rocky to begin with. In the past, Kuala Lumpur, Cardiff, Calgary, Edmonton and Adelaide had all pulled out of hosting the event in 2026.
Birmingham was then supposed to host the 2026 edition. But when Durban missed deadlines to sign the host city contract, set up an organising committee and make payments to the CGF, the CGF snatched the hosting rights away. Birmingham decided to fill in for the 2022 Games. Victoria volunteered to host the 2026 edition in April 2022.
Why is this pull out concerning?
While the Commonwealth Games features athletes from 71 nations and territories, barring United Kingdom countries, only six countries have ever hosted the CWG: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Malaysia and India. Of these, Jamaica, Malaysia and India have never hosted the CWG for a second time.
Australia has hosted the event more than any other nation: five times in the past. More importantly, it was supposed to host the CWG for the third time in six editions in 2026.
In the immediate aftermath of Victoria pulling out, all the remaining five Australian states — New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, and Tasmania — also announced that they had no plans to fill in.
Australian media quoted Western Australia Premier Roger Cook calling the Games “ruinously expensive”. A spokesperson for the South Australian government pointed out that in an independent financial analysis commissioned them, it was determined that the event would cost Aus $3.5 billion, while the economic returns would be around Aus $1.2 billion.
How can future organisers save costs?
Future hosts can take a leaf out of Birmingham 2022’s book where they hosted most of the athletes coming in at pre-exing facilities. About 600 athletes and officials were housed at the NEC Hotel Campus. A majority of other athletes were housed at university facilities — 1,900 stayed at The University of Warwick while 2,800 were put up at the University of Birmingham. While the decision was necessitated the COVID-19 pandemic, which affected the organisers’ ability to construct Games Village in time, it did present future host cities a blueprint to reduce costs.
Host cities can also rely on using temporary venues or repurposing exing infrastructure to host events. For example, the NEC Exhibition Centre hosted the boxing, weightlifting, badminton and table tennis events at the Birmingham 2022 edition. At the Gold Coast Games, three of the 17 venues were temporary ones.
Why is it a deeper exential crisis?
The Commonwealth Games, which were initially known as the British Empire Games, were started in 1930 to keep the colonies of Great Britain under one umbrella. Critics have often pointed out that the Games remain a relic of a gone British colonial era. At the 2018 Gold Coast Games, an Aboriginal group, called the Stolenweath Games, marched on the streets to protest Australia hosting the 2018 edition.
Victoria pulling out of hosting the 2026 edition further deepens the crisis for the Commonwealth Games movement. CGF president Dame Louise Martin said as much in 2018 when she spoke of the Commonwealth movement facing an ‘exential crisis’. “In recent times, our federation has done a lot of soul-searching to look at our impact and meaning,” she admitted.