Credit: FIBA
A Golden Decade Karen Sweaney explains how Australia has just entered what will be an unprecedented decade of major sporting events hile two years of the Coronavirus pandemic saw elite and community sporting events delayed, rescheduled and, at W worst, cancelled around the world, Australian sport has shown its resilience. Showing its adaptability, from playing behind closed-doors, moving grand finals to new locations and staging competitions in hubs, the capability of Australia’s sporting events sector to host big-ticket showpieces events is now set to deliver an unparalleled decade of major sporting events. Australia will over the next decade host a bumper schedule of major international sporting events as part of a long-term plan set out in Sport 2030, the Federal Government roadmap established in 2018 that recognises the broader economic and social implications of sport. However, Victoria’s 2026 Commonwealth Games hosting was more a product of the Commonwealth Games Association not having a bidder for the event. Nonetheless, the result sees what Australian Sports Commission (ASC) Chief Executive Kieren Perkins advised as “an unparalleled era in Australian sport with close to 30 major events already confirmed over the next decade including the 2026 Commonwealth Games and the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.” Australia’s acknowledgement across the world for its welcoming climate, sports-loving population, stable political environment and quality infrastructure makes it an attractive destination. This is in contrast with China, which, having successfully bid 16 Australasian Leisure Management Issue 150
to host numerous sporting events has postponed and even walked away from hosting major international tournaments. While it did proceed with hosting this year’s Winter Olympics earlier this year, China’s self-imposed isolation from international sport has seen the Asian Games in September and the World University Games in May, postponed until 2023, while the Asian Youth Games, set for a December date and 2023’s AFC Asian Cup, postponed outright. By comparison, in what Australian Olympic Committee Chief Executive, Matt Carroll calls a “green and gold runway” culminating in the Brisbane Olympics in 2032, Carroll highlights “more than 30 major global sporting events are coming to Australia across the next 10 years.” In addition to the annual Australian Open tennis and Formula One (for which Melbourne recently retained the hosting rights until 2035), the country will host cricket’s men’s Twenty20 World Cup, Women’s Basketball World Cup and the UCI road cycling world championships this year. It will then jointly hold FIFA’s Women’s World Cup (with New Zealand) in 2023, a British and Irish Lions rugby tour in 2025, Commonwealth Games in
