End of the Empire: In the Age of Brexit, the Commonwealth Games is Probably Doomed

It was on the home stretch when the famed black singlet of New Zealand hit the lead in the men's 10,000m race at the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch.

The man wearing that singlet, Dick Tayler was a potato farmer from Timaru. The night before the race, he had knocked back three jugs of beer with his coach, the legendary Arthur Lydiard, and warmed up that morning with a jog on a Christchurch golf course.

Now Tayler had the lead. He wouldn't let it go.

As the 24-year-old crossed the finish line that hot late January day at Queen Elizabeth II Stadium, the hometown crowd chanted 'black, black, black' in celebration of the traditional Kiwi sporting colours. Tayler collapsed in exhaustion, and joy.

This scrappy Kiwi farmer had beaten the British Commonwealth's best. New Zealand had a sporting moment it would savour for forty years.

Dick Tayler's victory at the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch remains a special moment in Kiwi sporting history. Source: Youtube.

These days, Commonwealth Games moments don't rouse the same kind of attention, excitement or interest in Kiwis – or many others, really. We are now less than a year away from the Gold Coast edition of the Games, which due to start on April 4 next year.

While the sun was never said to set on the British Empire, whose global-spanning presence inspiring the event, it looks like it may be about to on the Games themselves.

Last month, South Africa's Durban was stripped from hosting the 2022 Games because it didn't meet financial and infrastructural criteria set by the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF).

"We have it our best shot, but we can't go beyond," South African sports minister Fikile Mbalula told media, at the time. "If the country says we don't have this money, we can't."

Durban were the only city to formal bid for the Games after Candian city Edmonton – who were understood to be the CGF's favoured option - dropped out because they thought the costs would be too high. When the news came though about Durban, Kiwi Minister of Sports Jonathan Coleman was quick to react: taking New Zealand straight out of the running.

There would have been a time when Coleman would have been told by a Kiwi Prime Minister to 'do what you can to get them.' That time is passed. Instead, the Commonwealth Games is now an event that has been labeled, by Indian media looking back on 2010 Delhi Games four years later, as "an exercise in opulence with little or no benefit in the longer term."

The numbers definitely back this up. Taking out the 2010 Games, which ballooned in cost to an estimated US$10 billion, the Glasgow Games in 2014 came in at around US$567 million. Most recently estimates have the Gold Coast event costing around US$1.5 billion.

A recent South African news report on Durban losing the rights to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Source: Youtube.

For that investment, facilities for 275 events in 18 different sports – as will be competed next year – must be built and maintained through the event, as well as accommodation and security for around 5000 athletes. That's twice the athletes that participated in the 1994 Games in Victoria, Canada.

Like the modern Olympic Games, the sheer size and cost clearly takes the majority of the member nations out of its running. Only Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester and Canada's Toronto have put up their hand as a last minute replacement for Durban.

Bruce Ullrich, a former NZOC vice-president, recently told the New Zealand Herald that New Zealand had not made a Games bid since when it last hosted in 1990 – in Auckland - because the base price tag of around $500 million would have to be met by the government. That wasn't happening.

Nor do the Games' poor television contracts appeal, according to Ullrich. "The other problem is there's basically no revenues from [them]," he told the NZ Herald.

"The television contract for the Olympics is in the billions, but for the … Commonwealth Games [television revenue] is chicken feed with the costs of staging them."

The promo video the Gold Coast used in its attempt to host the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Source: Youtube.

This all feels so far from the glory days of the Commonwealth Games, which officially began life in 1930 as the British Empire Games. Before then, a 1911 event know as the Festival of the Empire featured a sporting competition and took place in front of London's then-famed Crystal Palace.

Those were the heady days of the Empire though when everyone knew the words to Abide With Me and marched to war when King said so. Fast forward to 2017. Though New Zealand is not independent, it did try – only to bungle – getting the Union Jack off the Kiwi flag, while the UK has itself bungled its way out of the European Union.

In the post-Brexit world, the Commonwealth Games now really does feel like a relic of the increasingly distant past. Something you have to squint at to see its real benefits, beyond costs that hardly reflect them.

Ironically, with the UK out of the European Union, it's looking towards its old colonies again for new bilateral trade deals. While New Zealand and Australia have both said they're open to talking about it, both nations were stung when the UK joined the Common Market – the EU's predecessor – in the early 70s. New deals will be far easier said than done now.

Unless some serious downsizing is done, like cutting all team sports from the events as Ullrich has suggested, the Commonwealth Games might see its final editions on the Gold Coast, and whichever city closes the breach in 2022. After all, an economic recession or worse - imminently possible given the politics sharing North American and Europe at the moment - will make the event unpopular to go anywhere near.

Ah, for the days of Dick Tayler. Gone for good, sadly.