Ballsy walk on from Damon Heta at the World Matchplay 
I think it pretty much puts a nail in the coffin for Melbourne, and likely Australian hopes. For a lot of ‘middle’ sport federations in the Commonwealth, the CG are very useful as a competition. High-level competition without the pressure or expense of the Olympics help considerably in development. Australia has arguably benefited as much as any country from having that pathway.
The baffling thing here is how the costs could have ballooned so aggressively - the CGF are far more reasonable in their expectations, and it appears that Victoria actually pushed the scope out to include new venues etc. That really smells of expecting a Federal government to step in and being disappointed. It is difficult to see how Glasgow could stage games for about £600M in 2014 and Victoria would need more than 10x that number.
In any case, Melbourne and likely Australia will no longer be able to count on the Commonwealth votes for things like the Olympics (never ironclad, but a factor), that seems obvious. However, with 2032 in Brisbane, there is the opportunity to wipe the slate clean. I pity the poor Australian taxpayer now though, heading into an Olympics with the IOC knowing that there is additional pressure.
2022 has up until now largely been written off as a post-covid shock problem, this does bring the CGs into broader question.
What I find baffling is that it appears that Victoria chose an inherently more expensive model that was going to require more venue construction, then expanded on it to make it more expensive - and is now complaining about prioritizing sport over other social needs. Fair enough if those are not one’s priorities, but then why bid in the first place?
What overgrown CG circus? The numbers being trotted out by Victoria are almost an order of magnitude larger than any previous games. They are not trivial affairs, but none of them have ever cost £1B before this announcement. If anything, this fiasco will make it appear there is no way other than the big ticket Olympics model.
Good! Hopefully we don’t have to foot the bill for another of these circuses (after Brisbane 32) in my lifetime or my kids or potential grandkids lifetimes either. Profound waste of taxpayer money that is actually needed for useful things like schools, hospitals and infrastructure amongst other things.
Firmly agree when it comes to Olympics and World Cups. The bloat and resulting absurd expense propped up on wildly fictional cost-benefit analyses has to end. That in a sense is what is disappointing here, the CGs have served as something of a counterexample
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Sure. I’d suggest that Victoria never should have taken it on and that even the original estimated cost (about 2 billion?) would no longer be enthusiastically agreed to but in an environment of economic downturn and inflation alongside building supply side problems it just takes resources away from actual real infrastructure priorities just to furnish some regional locations (because that was the spiel - take it outside Melbourne) for a two week white elephant.
Didn’t Melbourne just apply for them in 2022? Hard to see how that much could have changed. Inflationary surge was more or less expected, the Ukraine war had already started.
I don’t know any of the details, having mostly read about this morning but having seen some of the material prepared for Calgary’s considered bid a few years ago. Does Melbourne not have suitable facilities? The CG model is now really aimed at minimizing the requirement to build new venues, so the regional hub model is really something of an own goal unless there was no other choice - the CG only requires athletics and aquatics, everything else is host’s discretion.
They signed into the agreement on 15th February 2022 (A Regional Led Bid For The 2026 Commonwealth Games | Premier). If they had waited a week they probably would have skipped over taking the CG on.
EDIT: April 2022 was when the bid was won.
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The Bray Wyatt one has hit hard. Creative guy and not everything hit well but you feel he had still a lot to give and leaves a young family.
Usually vultures on Twitter saying it’s down to you know what. Rightly ignore them.
Always a bit concerning when a guy 3 years younger passes on, I lost a good friend at 30 who was a wrestling fan and would have loved Wyatt to be fair.
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I don’t follow wrestling too much nowadays but what little I’ve seen of Bray Wyatt showed he was a pretty good storyteller.
Sad to see someone dying at this age.
On aside , saw the Bray Wyatt tribute highlights posted in YouTube. They seem to have Cody Rhodes back in again and as a major role to boot. I thought he went and started AEW with his friends and Tony Khan (Fulham guy).
And friends kept telling me about LA Knight who’s seemingly a hybrid of Rock & Stone cold. Pretty good mic skills from what little promo that he cut.
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LA Knight is very good to fair and his promo was perfect for the show really.
Wyatt generally seems loved by the entire back room that shows how much of a loss he is. Rhodes came back about a year ago.
As a product and entertainment it’s improved since Triple H got more control. Vince keeps poking his nose in.
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Yeah. That’s what people tell me.about Rhodes and la knight
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First PPV I’ve watched in earnest for a long time. Punk’s back. I’m invested.
Young Bucks/Hardly Girls in shambles.
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Wow. From what I’ve heard , his time at AEW was pretty toxic. Guess the money is too much for either party. Didn’t expect him at WWE
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End of the day HHH sees a business idea I guess.
Orton back too.
Seems to be something that follows Punk as there were similar stories from his first stint with wwe
Can’t be the only one watching the darts on here.
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in no particular order
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yeah…nah…comm games wont affect our ability to bid for sporting events…we are already a world class host for many events, no one will blink about awarding us certain events, olympics are decades awat from returning to aus after brisvegas…world cup will never be melbourne exclusively*…
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costs blew out becuase the state government was going to host the games regionally, which has virtually no capable facilities and all had to be built…the city of melbourne could have hosted the games for a fraction of the cost as everything is in place
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assuming we couldnt because of footies stranglehold on the 'g
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yes it was a massive play for federal funding
5.the Victorian building industry was never going to finish those projects ontime…ever…however, luckily enough ( sarcastic) the state government has pledged to keep the infrastructure projects ‘in’…so not only do we not get to host the games, we get to still spend approx. 2.6 bil on infrastructure…one might even think the construction industry has supplied a few ‘incentives’…ahem…
*to understand the moving parts here ; Fifa require sole use of the stadis, the MCG wont commit to that, and the contract that Marvel stadium (other large stadium in melbourne) has with the state is no other stadium will be build more than 35k seater in the state for x years…thats why AAMI stadium (known as ‘melbourne rectangular stadium’ ) was used for the womens world cup …at 32k capacity…so melbourne probably doesnt even WANT a world cup. the two larger stadiums in melbourne are circular and are shite for watching the world game.