The sooner they just scrap the Comm Games altogether the better.
I think ultimately Victoria did every future potential host a favour by opting out and shining a light on how much of a white elephant it is now days.
It absolutely sucks for all the athletes who now miss one of their few pinnacle events but it's such a pointless event these days and costs everyone involved a huge amount of money.
Or did a good job at shining a light on how ill thought out and overcooked that bid really was..
Gold Coast did a comparatively great job of delivering the games. The cost to host the GC games was $1.2 billion, and the economic benefits of the games came in at $1.8 billion, not to include the legacy value of the infrastructure that was left behind(no white elephants). Victoria's regional bid was estimated at $6 billion when it was finally killed.
Hosting a major event and building bespoke facilities across regional centres throughout the state, whilst a charming idea, was always going to come in ridiculously expensive. Had they hosted it in Melbourne using existing infrastructure it would have been a fraction of the cost.
Argument can be that it doesn't have to be in the exact location if you need facilities. The Olympics show this.I can understand the merits of some of these decisions given the logistics that go into organising the events versus the output(number of athletes that compete, sport popularity), but in other cases, I can't.
Hockey had dedicated facilities built for 2014 Glasgow Comm Games and would be available for use. Rugby 7's used Rangers FC home ground, whether it's available though is another thing but there are other stadiums that could host.
It does seem they've taken exception to the big team sports and cut those, with a limited time frame providing for an athletes village for teams of Hockey, Rugby and Cricket alone is a couple of hundred athletes. So perhaps it's a cost/logistical issue.. Dam shame though.