Judging the success, or otherwise, of Glasgow 2026 was always going to be a tricky business.
Which metric should be used to judge a Commonwealth Games that was only held in Glasgow because no other nation would touch it with a barge pole, which was organised from start to finish in just over 18 months, was a considerably scaled-down edition and which was delivered on a shoestring budget (in relative terms)?
Given all this is it, then, something of an impossible question.
In one sense, Glasgow 2026 was highly successful. That it materialised at all was somewhat miraculous because, at one point, it appeared far more likely than not that there would be no Commonwealth Games this summer.
Despite being considerably smaller than any Commonwealth Games in recent times - just ten sports across only four venues is minuscule in comparison to the last time the Commonwealth Games came to Glasgow in 2014 - there were some significant high points and notable moments of Glasgow 2026, which ends today.
The biggest positive was the sport which was, in the main, excellent.
At Scotstoun Stadium, the men’s mile, which was billed as the event of the Games, duly delivered on its promise to be a captivating race and produced a Scottish winner in Josh Kerr.
The gymnastic competition was, as always, thrilling and there were several significant stories in the pool, with perhaps the most-publicised Englishman Adam Ramsay-Peaty’s emotional failure to win gold.
From a Scottish perspective, there were more than a few eye-catching performances, too. Swimmer Angharad Evans was the breakout star of the Games, winning two gold, a silver and a bronze. Duncan Scott enhanced his reputation yet further with gold in the pool on the opening night, para-cyclist Neil Fachie became this country’s most-decorated Commonwealth Games athlete by winning his sixth Commonwealth gold medal and gymnast Reuben Ward made history by becoming Scotland’s first-ever all-around Commonwealth champion.
And there was, as is always the case, some uplifting, some inspiring and some mad stories from this Games, too. There was Team England weightlifter Cyrille Tchatchet, who fled the Cameroon team camp at Glasgow 2014, slept under a bridge for two months before claiming refugee status and rebuilding his life only to return to Glasgow this summer to win silver. There was South African swimmer Chad le Clos becoming the most decorated male athlete in Commonwealth Games history with his 19th Commonwealth medal in the pool. And there was Idi Amin’s grandson, Aziz Abdul, being disqualified from the boxing for a headbutt.
But Glasgow 2026 certainly wasn’t flawless. Far, far from it in fact.
In the end most, if not all, of the anticipated drawbacks of this Games did, indeed, materialise.
From the outset, there was widespread scepticism about the reach of this Games and so it turned out. Outwith the host city, Glasgow 2026 was largely anonymous to those who are not sports aficionados and even within the city, all but the most sports-mad had much interest or even knew about the Games’ existence. This failure to ensure the Games was high-profile was, however, a consequence of the lack of fanfare in the run-up to Glasgow 2026 rather than any particular failing of the 11 days of the event itself. That the football World Cup ended only days before Glasgow 2026’s Opening Ceremony was always going to make it nigh-on impossible to grab many headlines in the run-up to the Games starting.
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But, having said that, the organisers could and should have given this Commonwealth Games a better starting point than they did. Several poor decisions made things more difficult for the event than need be, primarily the decision to sell the broadcast rights to subscription service, TNT Sports, rather than think about the bigger picture and accept a lower (admittedly significantly lower) bid from the BBC.
Yes, awarding the television rights to the BBC would have made less cash for the Games, but having Glasgow 2026 on free-to-air television within the UK would have transformed the number of people who engaged with the event.
Viewing figures on TNT were predicted to be dire in comparison to past Games, which had all been on the BBC.
The women’s 10,000m at Birmingham 2022, in which Eilish McColgan won gold, was watched on the BBC by 6 million people. The same race at Glasgow 2026 attracted merely 250,000 viewers. The Opening Ceremony of Glasgow 2014 had an audience of 9 million, Glasgow 2026’s Opening Ceremony attracted less than a tenth of that (and this was despite it being free to watch on Channel 5).
The viewing figures across every event of all ten days of sport mirrored this drop in audience (it wasn’t helped, either, by the fact that TNT’s coverage just wasn’t very good). The short-sighted decision to allow the Games to go behind a paywall turned out to be as catastrophic as everyone, myself included, predicted. The organisers should hang their heads for making this decision which cost the Games dearly in terms of visibility.
And the exorbitantly high ticket prices, unsurprisingly, resulted in swathes of empty seats across the Games.
When the stands were full at Glasgow 2026, as did happen in most sports at particular sessions, the atmosphere was electric. Competing in-front of a packed house is what elite sport is all about. Too many tickets, though, remained unsold due, largely, to yet another short-sighted decision to price the tickets too high. Bums on seats should always be prioritised over making a few extra quid.
On balance, then, how successful can Glasgow 2026 be considered?
This Games was considerably scaled-down in comparison to previous Commonwealth Games but this proved to be a masterful decision. More sports in this Commonwealth Games would not have made Glasgow 2026 any better. Indeed, there’s an argument that more sports would have made it significantly worse.
Taking into consideration the turbulent circumstances in which this Commonwealth Games ended up in Glasgow, it was a good event. Not an event that took over the city as happened in 2014, but a good sporting event, nevertheless.
And, most importantly, it went ahead at all. Without Glasgow 2026 we would never have seen another Commonwealth Games held. This Games has secured, at least in the short to medium-term, the future of the Commonwealth Games. There will be a Commonwealth Games in 2030 and, almost certainly, one in 2034, too. There may well be more. Without Glasgow 2026, the Games would have been dead.
And so, while far from a perfect sporting event, Glasgow 2026 has pulled the Commonwealth Games back from the brink, and delivered some truly world-class sport on the way.
This, or something similar, is the model the Commonwealth Games will use going forward and, with any luck, future organisers will learn from the mistakes made by Glasgow 2026. So, overall, well played to Glasgow and, most importantly, well played to the athletes and the fans who did turn out who made this Commonwealth Games as good an eleven days as we could have possibly hoped for.
