Did Victoria just exhaust itself? Has the nation’s so-called sporting capital burned itself out?
Did Victoria just exhaust itself? Has the nation’s so-called sporting capital burned itself out?
The 2026 Commonwealth Games isn’t the Olympics, but Melbourne has already hosted that global event, dining out on its success for 69 years.
In the interim Melbourne has methodically moved to capture more and more of the key sporting contests, aided by its historic luck as one of the wealthiest cities in the world at the time that sport became more formalised.
It was a Victorian business that sponsored the English cricket team to tour Australia in 1861-62, starting in the state’s capital and including games at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, which had been established in 1853.
Melbourne hosted the first Australian Open in 1905, but it only grabbed the monopoly on that event in 1972.
A couple of years later the first test match to start on Boxing Day was held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and, by 1980, the Melbourne Cricket Club had secured the rights to host that match annually.
When the Victorian Football League spread its wings and ultimately became the AFL, starting with a team from Sydney, it ensured the MCG would host the competition’s grand finals every year (except 1991 during a rebuild), with the only other exceptions being during the Covid crisis.
It is a signal of sporting organisations' willingness to commit to the attractions of Victoria, which does not include the weather. Powerful forces in business, politics and their crossover with sports organisation leaders have had their impact.
Despite the financial weakness of many Victorian AFL teams, they have clung on to represent half the national competition, aided by salary caps, a financial equalisation system and a draft that gives them a sporting chance that a purer system would not.
Motor racing’s Australian grand prix did start at Victoria’s Phillip Island in 1928 and was held there for several years before rotating around the states until 1980, when entrepreneur Bob Jane made Victoria’s Calder Park the centre for five years.
In 1985 Adelaide rocked the sporting world by winning the rights to the FIA Formula One World Championship, the first time Australia was formally part of the world circuit. South Australia hosted the race for a decade.
But in 1996 Melbourne’s Albert Park became the F1 venue following a long campaign by prominent Melbourne businessman Ron Walker and the then Liberal state government led by Jeff Kennett.
It was not the last time Victoria poached an event.
The long-running WA golf event the Heineken Classic, which had started off life in 1990 as the Vines Classic at the Swan Valley course, was lured to the Royal Melbourne Golf Club in 2002.
In more recent years, Melbourne has vied for other sports leadership positions.
It has bid for all or part of the Australian hockey high performance program against Perth, where it has been based for about 40 years.
Last year, Netball Australia announced it had signed a $15 million deal through to 2027 with Visit Victoria, the state government’s tourism agency, to replace the funding withdrawn by Hancock Prospecting.
Under the new deal, the Australian Diamonds netball team will wear Visit Victoria branding, players and coaches will appear in Victorian tourism campaigns and the state was to effectively become the home of the national team, hosting at least one international Test match for the next five years and the sport’s high-performance training camps.
In women’s sport, Victoria recently opened a $42 million soccer facility at La Trobe University which has been recognised as the home of the nation’s female team, The Matildas. It was claimed to be the biggest investment ever made by any level of government for a football-specific project in Australia, though WA's State Football Centre is joint funded by the state and the commonwealth and the final cost will end up being about $46 million.
But was that peak sport for Victoria. It will host some of the Matildas’ matches in the forthcoming FIFA Women’s World Cup but Sydney will have the final.
And now it has bowed out of hosting the Commonwealth Games, its government crying poor over the cost and its business elite nowhere to be seen in coming to the rescue.
It is massive brand damage and shows that buying your way to the top of sector – the equivalent of economic steroids – comes with a price tag that can prove unsustainable.
Running the Commonwealth Games, with the politically-attractive regional emphasis that the Daniel Andrews-led government insisted on, could have cost more than $6 billion above the original forecast.
Is it unsurprising that you can't have your cake and eat it?
The state was already struggling to pay its way before the significant economic implications of its own goals when it came to extended Covid lock downs.
It is worth noting that sport was not the only sector that has received costly largesse from the state. Victoria has poured millions into education in a bid to attract researchers, academics and students from other states and overseas.
All that comes at a cost. After a years-long spending spree, its debt is the biggest for any state.
It also squeals at the high cost of gas piped in from the north but it refuses to allow explorers to find and exploit its own resources.
Eventually it has had to do something.
With rising interest rates, the squeeze is not just on mortgage holders. The Victorian government has announced delays on several infrastructure projects and a suite of tax hikes has been implemented, primarily rises in payroll tax aimed at big business and land tax targeted at investors.
No wonder it has finally dropped the baton on the Commonwealth Games; it can't afford to keep up the pace any longer.
