Nicki Nicol CA is likely to be one of the keenest spectators in the stands at the opening ceremony of the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games in July 2026.

But it’s not just the athletes she’ll be watching and supporting.

As the head of New Zealand’s major international sports body, she’ll be looking to network with games movers and shakers to see how to make things even better, with an eye to New Zealand hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2034.

Nicol is CEO and secretary general of the New Zealand Olympic Committee, which represents both the Olympic and Commonwealth Games movements in New Zealand.

She has no doubt about the popularity of the Commonwealth Games in New Zealand and why the nation should put up its hand to host.

“It’s the third most followed sporting event for us, behind the Olympic Games and Rugby World Cup,” she says. “And importantly for many of our athletes, it’s a really big part of their high-performance pathway as they build towards the Olympic Games.”

New Zealand already has a good track record with the Commonwealth Games. It successfully hosted the event in 1950 (Auckland), 1974 (Christchurch) and 1990 (Auckland).

“We've provided a formal expression of interest to host in 2034 to Commonwealth Sport [the international body responsible for the games], so the next phase will be when Commonwealth Sport seeks binding bids, which we expect will be post-Glasgow.”

Reinventing the Games

If New Zealand is eventually confirmed to host the 2034 games, Nicol and her team will be tasked with not just continuing an almost century-long tradition but helping to reinvent it after its near-death experience following two hosting fiascos.

Durban was stripped of the right to host the 2022 games due to financial problems.

More recently, former Victorian premier Dan Andrews cancelled the state’s bid to host the 2026 games, claiming the costs to stage the event in regional Victoria had sky-rocketed from an estimated A$2.6 billion to an unaffordable A$6 billion or more.

Those withdrawals cast a pall over the future of the games, with some even predicting its demise.

But Commonwealth Sport now seems on track in its bid to reinvent the games for the 21st century. It has devised a new model and new host city selection process, along with 10 games reset principles, with Glasgow first in line to trial the new approach.

Or as Commonwealth Sport puts it: “Glasgow 2026 will be a bridge to the games of tomorrow – an important first step in our journey to reimagine and redefine the games as a truly collaborative, flexible and sustainable model for the future of major events.”

The games reset principles aim to:

• Lower costs by 60% to enable new countries and regions to bid
• De-risk budgets and timelines by mostly avoiding new capital infrastructure
• Encourage the use of existing venues for sport and accommodation.

It looks like Glasgow is already ticking all those boxes: the event will be held in one city, feature only 10 sports and six Para sports in four existing locations, and athletes will stay at hotels, rather than purpose-built accommodation.

Even better, Glasgow is set to deliver its games with a budget of only £150 million – a fraction of the failed Victorian bid – and with no public funding.

‘No discernible benefit’

So, did Victoria dodge a bullet when it pulled out of hosting this year’s games, citing a multi-billion-dollar blowout?

Well, more likely it shot itself in the foot.

At least that seems to be the view of the Victorian Auditor-General, who found that the cancelled bid had cost Victorian taxpayers more than half a billion dollars, with no discernible benefit.

Victoria had proposed a multihub, multicity, regional bid that involved considerable infrastructure spending.

The Auditor-General issued a scathing 78-page report saying the failed bid had wasted A$589 million of Victorian taxpayer money, including a cancellation fee of A$380 million.

“This waste would have been avoided if agencies had worked together better to give frank and full advice to the government before it decided to host the games,” the Auditor-General said.

What probably still brings a tear to the eyes of Victorian taxpayers is that they’re paying for the majority of the Glasgow 2026 games – more than A$200 million – from the cancellation fee they’re stumping up, in effect funding a major sporting event on the other side of the world.

The benefits of hosting, when done right

Sports economist Professor Tim Harcourt says Victoria’s plan to stage a regional games and bypass Melbourne was mystifying, considering the years spent promoting Melbourne as a world-class sporting capital.

Harcourt is the chief economist with the Centre for Sport, Business and Society at the University of Technology Sydney, and has also worked with Austrade on projects involving the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games and the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games.

He says New Zealand has several factors in its favour when it comes to hosting big sporting events.

“They’ve got a good record, they’re very well organised with events, and Christchurch, Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin all have the new stadiums that they’ve built,” Harcourt says.

But there are some intangible benefits, which he calls the “schmooze effect”.

“When I was at Austrade, we ran a lot of business networking events at the [2006] Commonwealth Games, the Olympics and world cups and so on,” he says. “You get a lot of businesspeople coming to your country for special events and you can leverage things to get new deals.

“For instance, we had a lot of architects who met with Chinese businesspeople at Sydney 2000 and they ended up getting the Water Cube building for the Beijing Olympics.

“So, I’d encourage host countries to really think about your business program, because you might get a lot more investment that’s got very little to do with the games.”

And the timing might just be right to leverage Commonwealth ties.

“If you look at Australia, several of our major trading partners are Commonwealth countries,” Harcourt says. “In a world where headlines are dominated by China, President Trump and Iran, the Commonwealth Games is a good vehicle for Pacific diplomacy and better ties with countries such as Malaysia, Singapore and India.

“I wouldn’t underestimate the economic opportunities from the Commonwealth Games. I see it as another opportunity in a world that’s dominated by superpowers putting tariffs up all the time.”

A collaborative approach

Nicol says any New Zealand bid for 2034 still has a way to go.

“We have already a number of different cities that would be happy to be involved,” she says. “Auckland will be important and we would like to see other regional centres or other cities involved as well.”

Details might still be sketchy, but you can probably join a few dots already: the bid would be drawn up in partnership with government. There would probably be a modest opening ceremony to trim costs and athletes would likely stay in hotels, rather than a purpose-built village.

At Glasgow, Nicol will be looking to compare notes with representatives of the Indian city of Ahmedabad, which will host the centenary Commonwealth Games in 2030.

And if all goes to plan for Nicol and her team, it will be game on for New Zealand.

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