Commonwealth Games: Can Glasgow 2026 Revitalise the Event or is it Facing Demise?

Sometimes when a non-responsive person is close to death, a strange medical phenomena occurs. From apparently nowhere they experience a burst of energy. They recognise people again. They start to speak in sentences. Relatives even dare to hope. But, sadly, that hope is short-lived.

Doctors call it terminal lucidity. And it comes to mind at the dawn of the 23rd Commonwealth Games.

Less than three years ago, the Games were on life support after the original hosts, Victoria, effectively paid AUS$380m (£199m) to pull out because it feared losses running into the billions. Glasgow then stepped in to host a cheaper and stripped back event, with only 10 sports compared to 19 four years ago.

Yet a burning question lingers: can the Games really be revitalised, or are we merely witnessing a brief moment of light and lucidity before its inevitable demise?

At the dawn of 11 days of sporting competition, Phil Batty, the chief executive of Glasgow 2026 is in a bullish mood.

“This definitely isn’t the last hurrah for the Commonwealth Games,” he tells the Guardian. “What we’ve seen is a wholesale shift of what the Commonwealth Games needs to do to sustain itself, not just to 2030, but to 2034, 2038 and beyond.

“We’ve got some of the best athletes in the Commonwealth, in a city that loves sport, in a nation that loves events. We’re ready to showcase what a new format of the Games looks like, but one which still protects all those amazing hallmarks that makes it super-special.”

However, beneath the positive vibes there are significant challenges. Tickets are still widely available for most events – despite the Games being pared back. When Glasgow last staged it in 2014, for instance, track and field was held in a 46,000-seater Hampden Park. This time round it will be held at the Scotstoun Stadium, which holds just over 10,000 people. Yet tickets are still available for almost every session.

Viewers in the UK looking for live free-to-air coverage will also be disappointed. Last year TNT Sports bought the rights for a reported £5m – a tiny sum in an era where TV sport is booming – with insiders saying the BBC offered considerably less.

It means that the BBC will not be showing the event for the first time since 1954. And while TNT is promising more than 600 hours of live coverage for £4.99 on HBO Max, for many casual fans it will be a case of out of sight, out of mind.

At least those watching will get to see some stars. Chief among them is the new mile world record holder Josh Kerr. His showdown with the 2025last year’s world 1500m silver medallist Jake Wightman and the Australian wunderkind Cameron Myers promises to be the race of the Games.

Elsewhere the double Olympic breaststroke champion Adam Ramsay-Peaty goes for double gold, while the fastest 50m swimmer in history, Cameron McEvoy, heads up a strong Australian swimming contingent.

Yet even the list of absentees is a long and painful one. It features Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson, the women’s 800m Olympic champion. The Canadian swimming sensation Summer McIntosh. The men’s 100m world champion Oblique Seville. The Olympic 200m champion Letsile Tebogo, the world 400m champion Collen Kebinatshipi. And the Olympic women’s 100m champion Julien Alfred.

If many of sport’s biggest stars don’t care about the Commonwealth Games, then why should we?

Despite the hopeful noises about a brighter future, many question whether the financial numbers stack up for future hosts as well. Birmingham 2022 ended up being a huge party but its abiding legacy was its stinking financial hangover – with costs estimated at £778m. Meanwhile the verdict of Victoria’s state’s auditor general was particularly damning. The Commonwealth games was, they said, “a waste of taxpayer money” with no “discernible benefit”.

True, Ahmedabad in India has agreed to host the 2030 edition as part of its plans to convince the International Olympic Committee that it has the capability to stage a future Olympics. But how many other governments will want to risk taxpayers’ money on a mid-tier sporting event?

Not that Batty sees it that way. “This is going to be a Games that stands shoulder to shoulder with previous Games,” he says. “And it is a really important moment for Commonwealth Sport. It was an event that was in jeopardy which needed to reinvent and make itself fit for purpose for the future. We have created a format of the event that’s flexible, relevant and integrated para-sport. Therefore this is something that’s going to continue for many editions going forwards.”

Plenty of others are deeply sceptical, however. And in a world where the Commonwealth itself has looser and more untangled geopolitical connections, what really is the relevance of a sporting competition between 56 disparate countries?

Still, people have written the event off before, only for it to cling on. Earlier this week, organisers announced that Simple Minds would be the star attraction for the closing ceremony. Over the next 10 days we will get a better idea whether the Games are still alive and kicking.