Yep, I agree. The Commonwealth Games are becoming increasing irrelevant as each year goes on and it wouldn’t even surprise me if they’re an event that has become sporting history within a decade or two.
Sure, Australia seems to dominate the medal tally* most of the time but on the whole they’re considered to be nowhere near as important as the Olympics by most people here. I’d imagine that New Zealanders would have similar opinions.
*No doubt helped by the fact many top Olympic countries don’t participate or in the case of the UK, participate under the separate nations of the empire rather than collectively.
I reckon GC 2018 was a surprise hit though? Seemed to be universally praised and went beyond Seven (and media) expectations, and I’d say the general Australian public’s.
Except for the balls-up that was the Closing Ceremony and Joh Griggs and Basil Zempilas’ infamous unbelievable (but justified and applauded) ‘rogue’ moment.
The Gold Coast Commonwealth Games were always going to rate decently in Australia for reasons that shouldn’t need explaining.
When the event hasn’t been held in an ideal timezone for Australian TV viewing, ratings have been less than impressive (remembering Ten’s experience with Dehli & Glasgow).
I think there were a lot that thought it wasn’t going to tbh, especially when 2018 was when TV had been heading south so to speak, miles away from the 2006 high TV viewing days. There was a lack of buzz, especially outside Queensland and lower publicity too. Wasn’t there also a an issue with press accreditation which wouldn’t have helped.
It rated in the 1.2 - 1.4m metro and even achieved two nights in one week of over 50% network shares.
And in 2018 heaps were able to view events on the app.
I guess I shouldn’t over-look 10’s then terrible ratings for Delhi 2010. A year in which they also heavily promoted it throughout their AFL coverage and MasterChef (record rating season).
600k-ish metro would even be barely passable today for a Comm Games.
Although that’s total people, if it can do well in key demos might be a different matter, which is what all the commercials are focussing on these days.
lol true - however, if the border restrictions and quarantine etc either cancel the Olympics or force it to be a shadow of itself, Brum might be positioned well.
A shame Durban fell through.
I have a feeling Nine Entertainment Co might get the rights to the Commonwealth Games Birmingham sharing the coverage across Stan Sport, Nine and 9Gem with the NRL being on 9Go during the games.
Assuming they are interested … I have a feeling that there is no way Nine would move the NRL from the main channel in Sydney and Brisbane for what is now an increasingly lackluster sporting event. We of course don’t know if any network is interested in the rights.
Perhaps I could eventually proven wrong, but at the moment it wouldn’t be overly surprising to see Foxtel get the rights to the Commonwealth Games with either the ABC or SBS offered a bare bones FTA package (including Opening/Closing Ceremonies + key events of interest to Australians) on the cheap to fill the anti-siphoning requirements.