Commonwealth Games Scotland (CGS) have proposed a business plan for running the 2026 Commonwealth Games, following the withdrawal of Victoria, Australia. They envisage a stripped back event (just 10 sports), with no recourse to public funds. The Games would be self-funded from commercial income, along with money from the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) secured in compensation from the Victorian government when they bailed.

In the first instance, this is very positive - something is better than nothing, and insulating the Games from the intransigence of politicians provides a level of security, not just for the CGF, but for athletes who are trying to plan their life around a training and competition schedule only to have it ripped from under them.

But it also feels like defeat. A concession to a political landscape gripped by the discredited policy of austerity, which places little value on investment, culture or international events. It surrenders to the groupthink that the UK is incapable of investment, or even should not invest where we are able to (through some weird, Thatcherite misreading of Hayek).

Can we afford it?

It is instructive to remember what government spending looks like. UKGov spends just over a trillion pounds a year. The human brain is not wired to comprehend a trillion of anything. Intellectually, we can move the zeros around on paper. But we can’t really comprehend those orders of magnitude.

What this looks like is ~£3Bn/day. Health and Social care spend ~£500m/day (and worth every penny).

The point is that when we talk about the Commonwealth Games “costing” £100, £500m, or £700m. We’re talking about a once-in-<4/8/12/16>-year event “costing” something on the order of one day of NHS. In fact, if the Games run for 14 days, the UK Government will have spent ~£42Billion in that period on social care, education, military, etc. The “cost” is literally three orders of magnitude smaller than everyday, routine spending.

If the Games cost £500m, and were entirely funded from the public purse (they’re not), then over the 14 days of the Games, they would amount to 1% of public spending. The Games would represent 0.05% of UKGov’s annual budget (preparation is a multi-year affair, but let’s imagine we bundled the whole thing into the year of the Games). In household spending terms, if you had an income of £30k/year, the Games would cost you £15. The idea that this is an intractable, prohibitive sum suddenly seems a bit silly. Especially when you consider that it’s more like £5 in the year of the Games, and £2.50 for the preceding 4 years.

As I have previously written, much of the “cost” of Olympic and Commonwealth Games is in preparing (often overdue) infrastructure which provides an enduring legacy. The Games are a catalyst, but this is not really a “cost”. When done well (as in London), there is a net-positive payback to the economy. The actual running cost of CWG Games are as little as £100m, covered by ticket sales, merchandising, sponsorship and broadcast rights (and this is the basis of Scotland’s business model for a stripped back no-build Games in 2026).

Any claim therefore that a sovereign government like the UK, Canada or Australia cannot afford - once every 8, 12 or 16 years - to do maybe £500m of infrastructure upgrades in a (usually deprived) area is patent nonsense. They can. Easily. It is a political choice not to, not an economic choice.

On this basis, one might pipe up and say “well okay, if we can sling half a billion quid around just like that, why can’t we get trams built in Leeds or Stoke, or railways that work?”. Spend the money, just not on sport".

The answer to that is… why indeed? We can. It is a political choice not to. Write to your MP and tell them to pull their finger out.

Should we afford it?

If we accept that money can be available for investment, the next question is whether we should spend it on upgrading a single city’s infrastructure ahead of a Games, or spread it around on multiple concurrent tram/rail/energy/education/infrastructure projects. The short answer is that we can do both (the government can - functionally - borrow as much as it needs by issuing gilts, the only limit being demand-pull inflation when we hit the resource limit of the economy - i.e. when the government starts competing with itself for labour, building materials, etc).

Let us not submit to the vile doctrine of the nineteenth century that every enterprise must justify itself in pounds, shillings and pence of cash income … Why should we not add in every substantial city the dignity of an ancient university or a European capital … an ample theater, a concert hall, a dance hall, a gallery, cafes, and so forth. Assuredly we can afford this and so much more. Anything we can actually do, we can afford.

Yet these must be only the trimmings on the more solid, urgent and necessary outgoings on housing the people, on reconstructing industry and transport and on replanning the environment of our daily life. Not only shall we come to possess these excellent things. With a big programme carried out at a regulated pace we can hope to keep employment good for many years to come. We shall, in fact, have built our New Jerusalem out of the labour which in our former vain folly we were keeping unused and unhappy in enforced idleness. - John Maynard Keynes, 1942

Keynes would be shocked at the manner in which modern politicians have given up not only the “trimmings”, but also the more solid, urgent and necessary outgoings. And yet the maxim remains true - Anything we can actually do, we can afford.

The longer answer is that this becomes less relevant the more you do of it. As the infrastructure standards of cities grow, the work that needs doing to host something like a Commonwealth Games falls. Indeed, we saw Birmingham deliver the 2022 Games in a rush, with very limited capital investment outside a new (long-overdue) aquatics centre. Fortunately, Network Rail had just spent quite a bit on upgrading the City line and University station, and the West Midlands Metro tram was also being rolled out. If you once build decent public transport and civic infrastructure, then the preparation cost drops towards zero, and you’re just left with the hosting cost (covered by commercial income). This is again, the basic assertion in Scotland - Glasgow is still in a position to leverage the 2018 investments for 2026. For the record, Birmingham came in £70m under budget.

If UKGov stopped starving local authorities of funding and (say) invested money into trams and transport infrastructure for Leeds, then Leeds would have very little difficulty hosting a Games with existing sports facilities and stadia. But more importantly, life would be permanently improved for the people of Leeds. There would be less traffic, less pollution, fewer potholes (and a reduced local roads budget). Non-drivers would be better able to participate in civic life. What sort of person wouldn’t deliver that if they were able to?

What’s wrong with a small, 10-sport Games?

The final question is why am I complaining about this? Doesn’t a small Games still embody the spirit of international harmony and friendship?

The answer is “sort of”. The Commonwealth Games brings together many nations. Some enormous like India, and some tiny like Gibraltar and St Helena. There have been times when island nations have sent just one or two athletes, participating in just one sport. It often comes as a surprise that target shooting has historically had one of the highest “flag counts” of any sport, where a nation’s only representatives were there to shoot - no runners, cyclists or swimmers.

Even putting aside shooting, the exclusion of small (but highly flagged) sports will inevitably limit participation. If you only run athletics, cycling and swimming, some nations will cease to attend the Games because they have no one to send. As I wrote in 2022, dropping smaller (but regionally significant) sports risks marginalising small nations.

Whilst I have no desire to drop them, the Commonwealth Games doesn’t need athletics or swimming and those sports don’t need the Games, suffering no shortage of events - from Diamond League to Europeans and Olympics. The CWG needs archery and lawn bowls. The quirky stuff. The stuff we celebrate every four years because they don’t get dedicated mainstream sports coverage. The Games is all about these events, and these events benefit heavily from inclusion at the Games. And even with the Olympic sports, the CWG features non-Olympic disciplines - such as Fullbore target rifle, which is neither Olympic nor even an ISSF discipline, but practiced heavily within the Commonwealth - the top nations being Britain, Canada, Australia and South Africa (the latter referring to it as “Bisley shooting”). The broadcasters of course demand the big-ticket sports, but it would rip the soul out of the Games to just become a “mini Olympics”, which it has never been.

The (vain?) hope

My hope would be that CG Scotland - in pitching a self-contained event - can then leverage the UK and Scottish governments to say “Look, we’re doing this anyway, but it (and <local area>) would really benefit from an extension to the tram line, or improved bus provision. Would it make sense to do it sooner rather than later?”. Or twist their arm into subsidising extra sports at a Games which is independently washing its own face. Catalysing public investment via a Games could be a thing. Albeit similar concepts have failed to materialise the promised benefits in the past. Relying on the private sector to spur public-benefit spending is generally a fool’s errand.

Governments can and should back this, along with arts and infrastructure. Failure to do so speaks to a listless acceptance of stagnation and managed decline.