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The hosts of the 2030 and 2034 Commonwealth Games are set to be announced within the next 18 months.
Katie Sadleir, chief executive of the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF), set out the goal during the last day of SportsPro APAC, revealing that several countries are interested.
“There’s a couple of people who put their hands up,” she said. “But I’d really like to try and get those next two cemented within the next 18 months.”
Sadleir did not disclose who was in the running, but did suggest a multi-nation bid was a possibility – a move which could attract first-time hosting countries to the table.
“We’re very conscious as a movement that we host Games, most recently, in repetitive countries,” she said. “We really want to get those Games out. To do that, it means you do need to have multi partners.
“I met with several sports ministers in Africa and said there is an opportunity to do an African Games.
“It’s creative, it’s different. But it actually brings more of that inspirational, aspirational sport out to more venues to actually let them engage in it.”
Sadleir added that learnings from the 2026 Commonwealth Games, which is taking place in the Australian state of Victoria, will help inform the decision on the next two hosts. Ahead of 2026, 16 sports have been named so far but the CGF is aiming to announce a further three to five in the coming weeks.
Victoria 2026 will also be the first Games under the CGF’s new strategic roadmap for 2026 to 2030, which includes making athletics and swimming the only compulsory sports in a move designed to offer greater flexibility for potential hosts. Sadleir believes Victoria is already seeing the benefits of the overhauled approach.
“This is definitely a Games that is responding to our 2026-2030 roadmap, which says we want to work with hosts to do something that really adds value, not just what we want,” she continued.
Sadleir also described Victoria 2026 as a “regional economic development bid” that will “create so many more opportunities to actually devolve people outside of Melbourne”.
Reflecting on this summer’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, Sadleir stated that the event “definitely exceeded expectations of all the stakeholders”.
“It was like walking around Disneyland on steroids the way the city was wrapped up,” she said.
“The stats in terms of coverage of BBC [in the UK] and Seven [in Australia] were just off the charts compared to what they were thinking. [There were] 28 million viewers on BBC, 11.9 million viewers on Seven.”
Birmingham 2022 also featured a greater digital-focused approach for the CGF, which included more content across social media. Though Sadleir admitted the organisation’s digital operation was still in its relative infancy, she hopes to make further strides on this front for the Games’ next edition.
“We are starting our digital journey,” Sadleir said. “It certainly was a step up from what we’ve done before. But we have invested in quite a lot of platforms and relationships that we will build on as we go through to 2026.”
